Happy Holidays from the Shakespeare Reader!

I'm wishing you all Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas for whatever holiday you celebrate. Stay warm, make sure to cozy up near the fireplace with a good book. Since we all have easy access to NYC, I encourage you to take full advantage of the events or places available during the next few months. There's quite a few holidays coming up, such as, New Year's, Martin Luther King Day, Valentine's Day...you know what I mean. Cheers to a fulfilling new year with many surprises and revelations in store.

Peace!

Upcoming venues to attend in 2012

I've made a list of places and events I plan to attend in the upcoming year. I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it!

• Opera New Jersey's production of Puccini's Tosca at NJPAC in February
• The Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center
• Dicapo Opera's production of Menotti's The Consul in NY
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Zoo America at Hershey Park in Hershey, PA
• Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company at SOPAC in South Orange, NJ

A Taste of Cuba by Beatriz Llamas

Here's another good book I spotted at the library. It was shelved under cookbooks even though it's more than that. It's a travelogue, a picturebook and a cookbook rolled into one. After a quick flip through, I decided to give it a whirl. The book was written by a Spanish national who resides in Cuba and another Spanish national, Ximena Maier did the wonderful illustrations. She, unlike Llamas does not reside in Cuba, but took two sketching trips there and collaborated with the author for this joint effort. Here are some of the many enticing recipes listed.

• Cassava Pasties
• Black-eyed bean fritters
• Creole fried chicken
• Cod fritters
• Corn Ice Cream
• Mojito

The recipe for Cuba's national drink is included here. This mojito has received rave reviews and never fails to impress. Drink responsibly.

Mojito

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup fresh lime juice
• a bunch of mint
• 1 bottle 3-year old rum

To prepare the mojito base: beat the sugar, lime juice and mint together until you get a greenish liquid and the mint is completely chopped. Add the rum and beat for one more minute. This liquid can be kept in the fridge for at least a month.

To prepare a mojito: quarter fill a tall glass with the prepared liquid, add 3 ice cubes and fill the glass with sparkling water. Add a sprig of mint, stir, and serve.

Intimate Apparel at the Zella Fry Theatre

Here's my review of Lynn Nottage's play Intimate Apparel that was performed October 20-22 at Vaughn-Eames Zella Fry Theatre. Don't worry, I took careful notes during the play so I'm looking from them for help. First of all, I didn't know the Vaughn-Eames building had a theatre, much less an art gallery. Vaughn-Eames has both. The gallery is on the first floor and so is the Zella Fry Theatre, an L-shaped studio off to the side of the building near the rear entrance. It was a cold fall night and the theater was cold as well. It's a small theatre like the University Center's Little Theatre, but doesn't seat nearly as much people. My guess that there were 100 seats available for the sold-out show. The stage was so close to the audience that at times it appeared the players were conversing with the people seated nearest them.

Anyway, on to the play, the most important part. Until this point, I had never heard of Lynn Nottage before--I don't follow the playwright circuit religiously, so I didn't know what to expect. I was already pissed at my professor from another English class that she made us attend this play. The student discount of $10 was better used elsewhere, not seeing a play in a cold theatre on a windy autumn night. The play was divided into two acts. There was an intermission after the first act where people went to the vending machines across the hall to buy snacks and drinks.

The play is set in 1905 New York City where the main character Esther Mills, played sympathetically by Rachelle Dorce. She portrayed the thirty-something unmarried African American seamstress with such sensitivity and vulnerability, there were so many instances where I wanted to go up and give her a hug. This is a woman who has lucked out in the love department and finds a thinly veiled appearance of George Armstrong, a West Indian worker who turns out to be a good-for-nothing con man and an illerate. She's friends with Mayme, an African American piano-playing prostitute who drowns her sorrows in booze and ragtime music. Mayme, played brilliantly by Brigette Stiegman, gave Dorce a run for her money. She stole  every scene she was in and garnered many laughs from the audience. She provided comic relief when necessary, but definitely explored her dark side adequately--included her backstory of the father beating her as a child for studying piano and her displeasure at the brutality of the clients who come to her apartment.

Rounding out the cast is Walmbegan N'Dure as George Armstrong, Anne Ackhart as Mrs. Van Buren and Daniel Pellicano as Mr. Marks. N'Dure, who is originally African, put on a very effective West Indian accent during his "letters" to Esther that he dictated to the audience and his wedding night with Esther illicited a strong female response from the audience--especially during their awkward kissing and him stripping down to just his underpants. Ackhart as the wealthy white socialite stuck in an unhappy marriage gave the play continuity, even though she didn't strike a chord with me as some of the other players did. I should give special mention to Pellicano portraying Mr. Marks, the Jewish immigrant cloth merchant who secretly loves Esther, but doesn't know how to tell Esther how he feels about her. I feel Nottage did this deliberately. Esther, I presume, feel sthe same way about him, but due to the fact that they come from two different worlds and the social mores at the time will not permit them to be together. That doesn't stop Dorce and Pellicano from openly flirting with each other throughout the play and the gentle modesty of Mr. Marks.

There's a beautiful and revelatory scene near the end of the play that displays where Esther's feelings truly lie--and they're not with George. I don't want to spoil it for any newcomers to the play. This play has won several awards in drama and rightly so. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing other productions of this wonderful play by Lynn Nottage and she's definitely a playwright worth seeking out. She won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Ruined, which is next on my list of must-see plays.

La Bella Lingua by Dianne Hales

For all you Italophiles and Italians out there, here's a book that you all should read. The book is titled La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, The World's Most Enchanting Language by Dianne Hales. I don't know about Italian being the world's most enchanting languages, but it is the world's most beautiful and one of the easiest to learn. Unlike German and Dutch, which use mostly consonants and harsh, gutteral sounds (English, unfortunately, being derived from the two) Italian flows freely on the tongue and awakens the senses. Dianne, being a WASP married to a fellow WASP and living in the most WASP-y part of the US (New England) clearly loves Italy and everything Italian. Here are some interesting occurrences mentioned in the book.

• she kissed an older Italian man under the moonlight when she travelled to Italy for the first time
• she claims to speak Italian fluently and has many Italian friends
• she met Italian director Marcello Mastroianni during a screening of one of his films
• she bantered with internationally acclaimed Italian actor Roberto Begnini
• she spent a great deal of time studying the famed Italian poets, painters and composers such as Dante, Petrarch, Michelangelo and Puccini

Of course, I don't want to give them all away. As a reader, half the fun is making your own discoveries. If this book doesn't get you on the next flight to Italy, I don't know what will. I plan to book my own trip to Italy very soon. It'll be the first of many adventures, I'm sure. Mario Batali, the famed Italian chef and TV personality, says that there are two types of people: the Italians and the people who want to be Italian. After reading this book, I belong to the latter.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Here's another book I read recently. To be honest, I discovered it by accident at my local library. I was searching for another book in the YA section of the library near the back and came upon this book. The cover was dark with an extinguished candle on the cover. The words Looking For Alaska jumped out at me. I thought would be an interesting book on the state of Alaska. Man, was I wrong! The female lead in the book name is Alaska Young. This story is narrated by a typical high school loser--no friends, no girlfriend, no social life whatsoever. Miles Halter, nicknamed Pudge, lives in Florida where he has a fascination with the dying words of famous people. He goes off "to seek the Great Perhaps," in the words of Francois Rabelais, the French philosopher. In other words, he wants to try his luck in a new school in a new state. He has a going-away party--only two people show up, but he's soon off to a small boarding school in Alabama. There, he becomes fast friends with Chip Martin, a.k.a. The Colonel and a Japanese exchange student named Takumi.

He also meets the beautiful and enigmatic Alaska Young and with his new pack of friends he starts smoking, plots elaborate pranks and gets his first kiss from Alaska. It's all good fun and Miles feels that he's living life to the fullest for the first time ever. However, everything is not so cut and dry and the source of Alaska's deep unhappiness is revealed during a drunken charade. Her mother passed away from a brain aneurysm when Alaska was eight. She was so stunned at the time that she didn't call for help fast enough--by the time her mother reached the hospital, she passed away. Alaska's father eventually forgave his daughter, but the damage was done. Alaska was emotionally scarred from then on, she always blamed herself for her mother's death. She has since used booze and sex to fill in the void her mother left. The chapters begin with the "before," as in, one hundred days before, until it gets down to zero. Once the reader gets to the "after," they are shocked to discover Alaska's sudden and tragic death, most likely a suicide, from the details given. Each character copes with her suicide in different ways. For Miles, who had an unrequited love for Alaska, the loss is devastating. He returns to Florida, his old school and life as he knows it before Alaska with a new appreciation for life and the possibilities that await him as a new man.

While this book is readable, it does have its faults. Some characters are simply cliches, ex. Japanese exchange student who raps, the Russian Lolita, high school boys who only drink and have sex. Alaska herself, is the most intriguing character, even though she doesn't get as many pages dedicated to her as The Colonel. The book leaves many questions unanswered and some subplots could have been removed to make the book flow better. All in all, I'm glad I read it, but it's not a book I'm willing to read again. I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions once you've read the book.

Writing Past Dark

 Here's another good book that was required reading for my senior seminar class. the book is called Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life by Bonnie Friedman. This along with the aforementioned book The Right to Write by Julia Cameron are two books on every English-Writing student's MUST-HAVE list. The book runs along the same vein of Cameron's book, however, the book is a lot shorter. In any case, less is more.
In this insightful and soulful book, Friedman takes the reader on a literary journey. To show you what I mean, the book is divided into eight chapters. They are as follows:

• Envy, the writer's disease
• Message from a cloud of flies: On Distraction
• Your Mother's Passions, your sister's woes: Writing about the living
• The Paraffin Density of wax wings: Writing School
• The Wild Yellow Circling Beast: Writing from the inside
• The Story's Body: How to get the meaning in
• Anorexia of language: Why we can't write
• Glittering icons, lush orchards: On Success

If those chapters weren't enticing enough, what if I told you that Friedman accomplishes more in her novella-like book than most other scholarly writers? She does, without question. I highly recommend using this book interchangeably with Cameron's The Right to Write. The books compliment each other very well. Friedman has many juicy anecdotes to share. While I won't reveal them all here, I will select a few that stood out enough to make me pull this book off my shelf to read again.

1. From Chapter 3, "The best stories I know I must not tell." (Friedman, 19)

2. From Chapter 3, "The force of the forbidden draws us. We want its power. We want to use it for our work. (Friedman, 24)

3. From Chapter 4," Stories are machines inhabited by a god." (Friedman, 54)

Friedman at one point describes silence as a young woman in a white dress with long hair and a blank stare. You see what I mean? If you find this enticing, then what are you waiting for? Get to your local library or the nearest bookstore and pick up a copy ASAP. This book will keep you entertained for hours. You'll also learn something new along the way.

The Craft of Research

Here's another useful tool for all of you English-Writing majors out there. The book I'm using for another class that I find extremely useful is called the The Craft of Research Third Edition by Gregory Colomb and Joseph Williams. The book's original author, Wayne Booth, passed away in 2005, but I didn't include him here. Anyway, the book is available at most college libraries or online for a small amount. I wish I had discovered this book back in my freshman year of college. Maybe I would have passed more courses!

The breakdown of this book is as follows. The authors state in the preface that they wrote this book to

• guide you through the complexities of turning a topic or question into a research problem whose significance matches the effort you put into solving it
• help you organize and draft a report that justifies the effort
• show you how to read your report as your readers will so that you can revise it into one that they will read with the understanding and respect it deserves

The authors state what sets them apart from other handbooks. For the most part, I think they are successful in their reasoning. The book is divided into five parts:

• Research, Researchers and Readers
• Asking Questions, Finding Answers
• Making a Claim and Supporting It
• Planning, Drafting and Revising
• Some Last Considerations (includes postscript and appendix)

So the class in question in a new course titled Research in Language and Literature. The fine details need to be ironed out. Unfortunately, we're the "guinea pigs" for the new course; it needs to be re-formatted before being offered again. I don't like the other required text for this course, it's a book titled, The English Studies Book by Rob Pope. Worst writing book ever! I can't get into it. I recommend skipping the Pope book and going for the aforementioned book, The Craft of Research.

To be honest, I don't like the professor teaching the course, but she did point the class in the direction of at least one good book. So get your hands on this book! Even more so if you're English-Writing at Kean.

The Right to Write

Here's a book that every writer should have in his/her collection. The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. This book was required reading for both my senior seminar class and one of my writing classes I'm currently taking. This book is truly a godsend. It has changed the way I looked at writing forever. The author begins the book quite amusingly. Here's her exact words taken directly from the text:
I have a fantasy. It's the pearly gates. St. Peter has out his questionnaire, he asks me the Big Question, "What did you do that we should let you in?"
"I convinced people they should write," I tell him. The great gate swings open.

Writing for me, has always been a craft. I've spent years perfecting my craft. I hope to make a ton of money off of my writing one day. Ever since I was old enough to hold a pencil in my hand, I've been writing. However, it wasn't until I was in junior high that I actually considered it as a career. I transport myself back to 1992, when I was in kindergarten, taking naps in the afternoon after which the teacher would have "story time." She would sit all the kids on the carpet in a circle. She would proceed with a book she had handpicked herself. She read us the story and let us see the pictures that came with the story. Every day, I impatiently awaited story time. The highlight of my day. It was the only time where we didn't have to do work. My imagination ran wild. What can I say? I got inspired. I vowed to write a story of my own, much like stories in the picture books.
Anyway, here's some of the main reasons I love this book:

• She has writing activities at the end of every chapter
• She's funny and articulate
• She refers to writing as a lover and a friend
• She explains that writing is a way of understanding life
• She says we are all writers, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not
• Writing is a form of prayer and meditation

I give this book five stars. I really recommend it. Buy it off Amazon or check it out at the library. Whatever you do, read it!

Shakespeare's Othello at Drew University

As promised, here's my review of Othello at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Let me start off by saying that even though the theatre is just a brief walk away, I cannot go there often. I usually buy a rush ticket, which was the case last Sunday, Sep 25 when I saw it. Rush tickets are discounted and they give you whatever seats are left, good or bad. Well, my seat was "orchestra right, seven rows up." Translation: my seats were lousy. Of course I don't need to tell you that all the seats for "orchestra middle" were taken. The theatre itself is very small, it only seats about 300 people. I find the outside lobby where they sell Shakespearean souvenirs more appealing than the theatre itself. Don't bother buying the souvenirs there, though. They're nice (t-shirts, hats, feather pens, inkwells, books, maps, etc) but way too expensive--even for a university. Buy them elsewhere, like I plan on doing.

Anyway, on to the play. Of all the actors in this play, the standouts for me have to be Robert Cuccioli as Iago and Lindsay Smiling as Othello. You would think that Desdemona would stand out as well, but Victoria Mack's Desdemona was barely memorable. She's pretty, polite and can certainly deliver lines well--but she's boring...for lack of a better word. To be fair, Othello's virtuous and falsely accused wife can be difficult to cast. The actress must not only possess physical beauty, she must command the stage in a way to not only have Othello won over, but the audience as well. Mack has the looks and charm, but none of the charisma to carry such an important role.

Jon Barker's Cassio was strong, funny at times and greatly cast. He provided comic relief when necessary, but still maintained his honor as Othello's newly appointed lieutenant. He shines in his scenes with the drunken sailors (all of which I wanted to take home with me, they were so adorable) and his brief scenes with Bianca, the Cypriot courtesan. Of all the ladies' costumes, Bianca's is the loveliest, by the way.  Some minor roles were doubled by the main characters, such as Lodovico and the Duke of Venice, who also plays one of the drunken sailors. Matt Bradford Sullivan should earn an important mention for his horrible Roderigo. Just awful. He wasn't funny and he wasn't pitiful. Just merely pathetic. I've seen better Roderigos both onstage and onscreen. Thankfully he doesn't have much stage time and he avoids stealing the spotlight from the two principle actors, which is good. Jennifer Antaramian's Emilia is solid, if generic. She talks with a slight Celtic accent. Whether it was intentional or not, I wasn't sure, but it got very annoying after a while. Emilia is from Venice not Ireland! Ironic, considering she doesn't have a Celtic look.

Robert Cuccioli's Iago was easily the star of the evening. I saw him in another production at the theatre as Salieri in Amadeus. He's a very good actor. Very talented. From the opening scene to his monologues to the audience, he's definitely knows his stuff. I hate Iago's character, but I didn't hate Cuccioli as him. You would have to see him to believe him. I saw him, and I'm truly glad I did. Smiling's Othello comes a close second--especially when his anger erupts in Act 3.  Wow! That sums up what I think about it. His epileptic fits and helplessness as a man slowly losing his mind.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

For all you English majors out there...here's a book I wish I read in high school. By the way, if you're curious about my age, you may take an educated guess: I graduated in 2005.

The name of the book I read recently was The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. I could have really used this book back in high school. Unfortunately, it was published in 2008, three years after I graduated. The book has won many literary awards and deservedly so, it's an intriguing, though-provoking read. It also has many SAT words that are useful for any college-bound high school senior.

The main character Frankie's real name is Frances Rose Landau-Banks. I just LOVE the name Frances and often wish that were my real name. The fact that she is called Frankie (which I love just as much) was a bonus for me. Anyway, she's the daughter of a Jewish mother, Ruth Landau from New Jersey and a WASP atheist father from Massachusetts. His name is Franklin Banks. He wanted a son to name after himself after his firstborn was a girl, Zada. He got another girl instead, so he named her Frances (as close to Franklin as possible) and nicknamed her Frankie. So Frankie grows up to be her father's Bunny Rabbit, the baby of the family, the docile one. She attends an expensive and highly competitive boarding school--named Alabaster Preparatory Academy in Massachusetts where her father and sister attended. She makes the transformation from geeky, shy girl to an attractive young lady and possible criminal mastermind.

She decides to infiltrate an all-male secret society (think Dead Poets Society) in hopes of getting closer to her boyfriend, liven up their usual pranks and to prove herself to everyone, who thinks she is just a harmless girl with no brain whatsoever. Girl power is imminent here, so guys who pick up this book beware. I do not consider myself a feminist, but I can identify with Frankie's need for identity and the desire to be loved for who she is instead of what people want her to be. The universal themes of love and acceptance are prevalent here, and anyone between the ages of 15-95 can identify with this book. I also enjoyed Frankie's compelling (and combative) encounters with the various males in the book. Most notably, Alessandro "Alpha" Tesorieri--the self-proclaimed leader of the Basset Hounds (all-male secret society) and Harvard-bound senior, makes this book. He has to be one of my favorite characters in fiction. The e-mails between Alpha and Frankie are very entertaining and kept my interest throughout the 300+ pages.  Other males in this book are equally enjoyable. There's Porter Welsch, Frankie's ex-boyfriend and a sophomore like she is. The e-mails between the two are fun as well. There's seniors Dean Enderby, Callum Whitstone and Matthew Livington--who becomes Frankie's second boyfriend and described by the author as a look-alike Clark Kent.

You'll just have to read the book to find out what happens to Frankie and the rest of these characters. I don't want to give away important plot points. I will say that this book is one of the more readable and intriguing books I've read in a long time. Take it from me, an English major and book-obsessed. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks would make a great movie! I'd definitely go see it! I'm happy to report that Kean Library has a copy on the third floor!

I have a soft spot for books with private school/academy settings and three-dimensional characters who could very well be your friends/boyfriends. Frankie's motivations and reasoning may come into question with some readers and the fact that her punishment did not equal the depth of her crimes may turn some readers off. It's not the perfect book, it has it's faults, but it's a perfectly written book with an original plot and enjoyable characters I wish I had gone to high school with. High school was never as cool as described in the book. I wish I'd have gone to a high school/academy like the one in the book. Maybe today I wouldn't have such a negative view of high school. Oh well...I plan to write books geared toward the young adult crowd, so we'll see where that goes.

Bottom line: If you have a few hours to spare, read it!!

about me...more or less

I am a senior at Kean University. I should be done by the end of this year. I will not give my exact age--just know that I'm in my early twenties. I'm the oldest of three children and the only person in my immediate family who has dedicated myself entirely to the arts. My major in English/Writing Option. I currently have a Facebook account, but I'm having second thoughts about it. I may cancel it, I'm not sure.

Let me say now that I'm BIG on Shakespeare (hence the blog title) and I've read most of his plays. I enjoy the tragedies more, you know Hamlet, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear, etc. I'm planning to see Othello very soon (review to follow). The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey is located on the Drew campus. I'm happy to report that Drew University is a brief walk from my house and I find myself going there often to see new productions. I saw a wonderful production of King Lear back in 2008. The actors did a great job!

Othello is described by scholars as "Shakespeare's perfect play" with the plot, setting and characters. I first read Othello back in high school and I've been hooked ever since. My favorite character would have to be Michael Cassio. He goes through a range of emotions like no other character in the play and is the only major character who still lives at the end of the play. I'm pretty sure you can guess what happened to everyone else. That is, if you haven't already read the play. I saw Othello at the County College of Morris years ago. I liked that production---so I'm looking forward to seeing it again at Drew University.

OK...enough about me. On to the more exciting stuff--upcoming book reviews and my review of Othello from the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey!