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kerrypolka

Kerry

Hello! I live in London, and I like reading about history, travel and literature. I also like good non-fiction about things I don't know about yet, and adventures.

Currently reading

Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens
Sofka Zinovieff
Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century
Vassilis Tsianos, Dimitris Papadopoulos, Niamh Stephenson
Introducing Fascism: A Graphic Guide
Litza Jansz, Stuart Hood
Women, Travel Writing, and Truth
Clare Broome Saunders
Progress: 37 %
Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers
J.K. Rowling, Emily Walcker, Jean-François Ménard
Progress: 10 %

"Antony and Cleopatra" by William Shakespeare (edited for the RSC)

Antony and Cleopatra (The RSC Shakespeare) - Pro  Eric / Bate  William / Rasmussen Shakespeare, Jonathan Bate, Eric Rasmussen

I love these new RSC editions of plays, although the Kindle formatting of the playtexts themselves is absolutely dire. I buy them anyway because the ancillary material is so excellent. There are careful textual notes about all discrepancies between the Folio (which the texts are based on) and any quartos, great quality interviews with directors, actors and other theatremakers who have staged the play recently, and thorough performance histories both at the RSC and outside it.

 

I especially liked the A&C one because I learned that the Harriet Walter/Patrick Stewart production I saw in 2006 used a live snake named "Billy Snakespeare" for the asp.

 

Antony and Cleopatra is quite a good play and this is an excellent edition of it, except for the formatting issues on Kindle which unfortunately make it pretty useless as an acting text.