bookshelf

WOMEN OF WILL

Name: WOMEN OF WILL
Author: Tina Packer
ISBN: 978-0-307-70039-1

THE FEMININE IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

by Tina Packer ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2015

A sparkling, insightful exploration of Shakespeare’s words and world.

bookshelf

How Shakespeare understood women.

The founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts, Packer (Tales from Shakespeare, 2004, etc.) brings 40 years of experience as a director and actor to her invigorating examination of Shakespeare’s women. Her fascination with these roles inspired her to create a one-woman performance piece, followed by a two-actor piece, five plays and, finally, this book. At present, she has relinquished the directorship of Shakespeare & Company to tour in Women of Will with her acting partner, Nigel Gore. Packer sees a clear spiritual growth, reflected in his female characters, as Shakespeare matured, fell in love and experienced loss. His understanding and empathy, she believes, was shaped by his own experience as an actor, which afforded him “a whole knowing of body, mind, spirit, and sound.” The young writer who created the volatile, ultimately submissive Kate in Taming of the Shrew had a far different understanding of women’s desires, sexuality and craving for power than the older playwright who created the complex Desdemona, Cleopatra and Gertrude. From the Dark Lady addressed in his sonnets, writes Packer, he developed an uncommon empathy and was “able to understand the bind that an intelligent, creative, sexually desirous woman was in—and he started to write in her voice.” Women, he realized, “speak the truth at their peril.” Both Desdemona and Emilia die in Othello, a play Packer thinks is more about sexism than race; Ophelia, who speaks uncomfortable truths not only about Hamlet, but the whole royal family, kills herself; Hermione, in The Winter’s Tale, “dies because she is simply what she is—truthful, committed, generous, caring.” Throughout the book, Packer digresses in engaging, articulate interludes: about Shakespeare’s life between 1587 and 1594, a period crucial to his emotional development; about her visceral and intellectual response to inhabiting men’s roles; about the connection of language to the body.

A sparkling, insightful exploration of Shakespeare’s words and world.

Pub Date: April 9, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-307-70039-1

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

bookshelf

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

bookshelf

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

bookshelf

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.