I’m pleased to report that I’ll be emceeing one of the five open-air stages at the San Diego Student Shakespeare Festival, to be held next Saturday, April 27, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Casa del Prado in Balboa Park.
Sponsored by the San Diego Shakespeare Society(sandiegoshakespearesociety.org), elementary, middle and high school students will perform 10-minute scenes, sonnets, music and dance from William Shakespeare’s astonishing works. As a vivid emblem of the Bard’s universality, students from two high schools in Moscow will perform their excerpts as part of the festival. And trust me: These youngsters don’t just read Shakespeare; they become his characters.
In addition to chewing the scenery on one of the stages, I’ll be hanging out before and after the performances and would love to meet you at the Prado. The only admission fee is your love of, at least curiosity about, the playwright and poet of whom Ben Jonson wrote: “He was not of an age but for all time.”
Anticipating the student performances, I offer a pop quiz on Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Answers are below.
1. How many plays did Shakespeare write?
2. What are the three categories by which the plays are generally classified?
3. Into how many acts is each play traditionally divided?
4. In what verse form did Shakespeare write his plays?
5. What do we call the first edition of Shakespeare’s collected works?
6. How many sonnets are in Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence?
7. How many lines are in a typical Shakespearean sonnet?
8. Identify the plays begun by each of the following lines:
a. Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York:
b. Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
c. Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home! Is this a holiday?
d. If music be the food of love, play on
e. Who’s there?
f. When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
9. Name the lover or wife of each of the following characters: a. Romeo; b. Antony; c. Petruchio; d. Benedick; e. Hamlet; f. Othello; g. Brutus; h. Henry V; i. Troilus; j. Touchstone; k. Ferdinand; l. Duke Orsino.
10. Name the Shakespearean heroes with whom each of the following enemies contend: a. Iago; b. Macduff; c. Laertes and Claudius; d. Hotspur; e. Octavius Caesar; f. Richmond; g. Brutus and Cassius.
Answers
1. 37
2. tragedies, comedies, and histories
3. five
4. blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter
5. the First Folio
6. 154
7. 14
8. a. “Richard III”; b. “Romeo and Juliet”; c. “Julius Caesar”; d. “Twelfth Night”; e. “Hamlet”; f. “Macbeth”
9. a. Juliet; b. Cleopatra; c. Katharina; d. Beatrice; e. Ophelia; f. Desdemona; g. Portia; h. Katharine; i. Cressida; j. Audrey; k. Miranda; l. Viola
10. a. Othello; b. Macbeth; c. Hamlet; d. Prince Hal (Henry V); e. Antony; f. Richard III; g. Julius Caesar.
Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com verbivore.com