The Shakespeare World Cup: Groups A & B

The Shakespeare World Cup
The Teams | Groups A & B | Groups C & D | Groups E & F | Groups G & H | Group Stage Summary, pt. 1 | Group Stage Summary, pt. 2 | Round of 16 Summary | Quarter Finals Summary | Semi Finals Summary | Final Summary

The World Cup is officially underway! Let's take a closer look at some of the play/team match-ups and see why they are appropriate.

Before I start, I freely acknowledge that much of the rationale presented below is tenuous and circumstantial at best, and totally spurious at worst. That's what you get when you base your pairings on such arbitrary measures such as overall line count and FIFA world rankings, neither of which take quality into account. If you have any better ideas as to why a particular pairing works, leave me a note in the comments! I need all the inspiration I can get.  

And here is Group B! I'm quite pleased with how Group B turned out.

20140613-S-SWC-GroupB.jpg

Tune in again tomorrow (Saturday) to see how Groups C & D fare!

The Shakespeare World Cup
The Teams | Groups A & B | Groups C & D | Groups E & F | Groups G & H | Group Stage Summary, pt. 1 | Group Stage Summary, pt. 2 | Round of 16 Summary | Quarter Finals Summary | Semi Finals Summary | Final Summary

The Shakespeare World Cup: The Teams

The Shakespeare World Cup
The Teams | Groups A & B | Groups C & D | Groups E & F | Groups G & H | Group Stage Summary, pt. 1 | Group Stage Summary, pt. 2 | Round of 16 Summary | Quarter Finals Summary | Semi Finals Summary | Final Summary

The World Cup starts tomorrow! YAY! Football (or soccer, depending on your geographic location and cultural preferences) is my soap opera of choice, and I am really looking forward to a month of international angst and drama. 

For those of my readers who are totally uninterested in football, I have selected 32 Shakespeare plays to stand in for the 32 international teams competing in the World Cup. They have been paired together courtesy of a very complicated scientific formula in which I listed the teams according to the totally not-arbitrary FIFA ranking system, then listed the plays according to line counts, and matched the plays together. Team captains were then appointed according to their own line counts (with Hotspur stepping to to replace Falstaff and Hal, both of whom captain other teams).

Six plays didn't make the cut: Henry IV, part 2 and Henry VI, parts 1 and 2 were disqualified for having parts with the same name already in the tournament, while Henry VIII, Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen were axed on account of excessive collaboration. Don't argue with me! My decisions are ineffable and incorruptible, just like FIFA's.

(That was a joke.)

So, without further ado, here are your competitors for this year's Shakespeare World Cup!

I'll be checking back periodically to explain why these totally arbitrary pairings work perfectly (Netherlands = Richard II! I mean, come on!) and to catch up with results. 

The Shakespeare World Cup
The Teams | Groups A & B | Groups C & D | Groups E & F | Groups G & H | Group Stage Summary, pt. 1 | Group Stage Summary, pt. 2 | Round of 16 Summary | Quarter Finals Summary | Semi Finals Summary | Final Summary

A Stick-Figure King Lear: Summary

Well, we've finally reached the end of King Lear. Thanks for sticking with me! It's taken a long time. In case you've forgotten everything that's happened over the past two months, here is a quick one-page summary:

I think that covers most of the highlights.

Before I leave King Lear, I must do my obligatory "Death and Marriage" count. As you know, the rule with most Shakespeare plays is that if everyone dies, it's a tragedy, whereas if everyone gets married, it's a comedy. Let's take a look at how King Lear measures up:

Surprise, surprise. 

(Thanks to Josh Freeman for reminding me about the Captain. I forgot all about him.)

Join me again on Wednesday, when I'll have... actually, I'm not sure what I'll have up on Wednesday, but it sure as heck won't be King Lear. Toodles!

A Stick-Figure King Lear: Act 5, Scene 3

The Story So Far: After the extremely exciting and not-at-all anticlimactic Battle of Dover, Lear and Cordelia have been captured by Edmund. 

I would like to note that the followed pages were scripted, drawn and inked while under the influence of jet-lag. It's kind of like working under the influence of alcohol, but with less flights of drunken creativity and more staring blankly at pieces of paper wondering why, exactly, you have chosen to remain conscious at this particular moment. 

After spending most of the play dithering and hedging his bets, Albany finally starts to show some backbone in this scene. Not a lot, granted, given that he's basically just following Edgar's instructions, but still....

Please don't ask me why Edgar is wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask. I don't have an answer.

Just a reminder... Goneril and Regan's story unfolds like this:

  1. Goneril and Regan divide the kingdom between themselves.

  2. Goneril and Regan join forces to resist will of unstable, domineering father.

  3. Goneril and Regan both fall in love with the same man.

  4. Goneril poisons Regan and stabs herself to death.

As the popular saying goes... "well, that escalated quickly."

I know I didn't do justice to Lear's final scene. That is because (a) I'm jet-lagged, and (b) it's actually so horrible that I have a hard time coming up with jokes for it. A parent losing their child is pretty much as horrible as things can ever get, and Lear's lamentations over the body of Cordelia are heart-breaking, even if you are of the mindset that Lear is a stupid old man who brought all this on himself.

So, Kent goes off, presumably to kill himself, leaving poor old Edgar and Albany standing around, surrounded by bodies. Aaaaaaaand curtain. Yay?

Anyways, tune in again on Monday, when I'll wrap up the entire play in a single page and provide you with the Death/Marriage counts. 

A Stick-Figure King Lear: Act 5, Scene 2

The Story So Far: After much talking, the forces of Cordelia and the forces of Edmund and Albany are ready to finally fight it out at Dover! THIS IS IT, GUYS! THIS IS THE BIG BATTLE OF THE PLAY!

Well.... that was a bit disappointing.

OK, I recognize that the battle isn't the big thing in this play, unlike in Henry V. But still! After all this talk of armies gathering at Dover, all we get is Gloucester sitting around on an empty stage, probably listening to piped-in battle sound effects, waiting for Edgar to run on and tell him he's missed it, it was a great battle, and they lost.

Tune in again on Wednesday for the big finale! What this scene lacks in content and excitement, the next scene makes up for in SPADES. It's got EVERYTHING. Except a guy getting his eyes gouged out. That's a once-in-a-play event. Sorry.

A Stick-Figure King Lear: Act 5, Scene 1

The Story So Far: Thanks to Kent, King Lear has been reunited with his daughter Cordelia, and seems to be regaining his wits. Cordelia has brought an army over from France, determined to wrest control of Britain away from her horrible elder sisters and restore her father to the throne. Unfortunately for her, Goneril, Regan, and their new toyboy, Edmund, have very different ideas.

Anyways, this is an interesting little scene. For one thing, the romantic rivalry between Goneril and Regan really rears its ugly head here, with both of them fixated on Edmund. Edmund's brother Edgar, meanwhile, is attempting to bring down Edmund by the most circuitous means possible. Why doesn't he just tell Albany to read the letter immediately and arrest Goneril and Edmund before the battle even begins? It would solve a lot of problems. If I've missed a cunning plot trick here, let me know in the comments.

Tune in on Monday, when the long-awaited BIG BATTLE happens! No, don't get your hopes up. It's incredibly anticlimactic.