Operetta Bingo

I am intensely fond of all things Shakespearean, but my first theatrical love was operetta, those fluffy, lyrical stage confections that aren't quite operas but haven't evolved into musicals. My parents took me to a local production of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus when I was three years old (I fell asleep in Act 3), followed shortly afterwards by a trip to the Stratford Festival to see their Pirates of Penzance. I was hooked.

Fortunately for me, the Ohio Light Opera is not too long a drive away from my home. Now in its 36th year, OLO's mission is to perform as many random operettas, light operas, comic operas and early musicals as possible. I have been going there for almost my entire life and shall be driving down again this week to get my annual operetta fix. 

To celebrate, I've put together a small bingo sheet covering some of the most common (and beloved) operetta tropes. If you are going to see an operetta anytime soon, print out a copy and take it along. Just please don't shout "BINGO" in the middle of the performance.

The sausage roll song, incidentally, is from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Grand Duke. This will probably not be the last time Gilbert and Sullivan is featured on this blog...

Ira Glass and the History of Shakespearean Criticism

So, as everyone knows, earlier this week NPR radio star Ira Glass ignited a firestorm by daring to voice his opinion about Shakespeare, writing the following tweets:

Unsurprisingly, the pro-Shakespeare crowd has been having a field day with this. As the world's leading (i.e. probably the world's the only) Shakesperean webcomic blogger, I feel obliged to address the matter. So here...

It's like chocolate. Some people don't like chocolate - I think they're crazy, and they don't know what they're missing, but I'm certainly not going to argue with them about it. It's a personal thing. People have been busy disliking Shakespeare for centuries, but Shakespeare is still here. And so is chocolate. I happen to think the world is a better place because both of those things exist, but people are free to disagree with me. 

Basically, my only quarrel with Mr. Glass is the utterly pedestrian terms he uses to attack Shakespeare. "Shakespeare sucks" is such a bland and banal statement when compared to George Bernard Shaw's devastating "it would positively be a relief to me to dig [Shakespeare] up and throw stones at him." If you're going to criticize Shakespeare, do it emphatically and with some flair.