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Shakespeare and His Plays
From A Midsummer Night's Dream to Twelfth Night, you can find just about everything you need on these pages.

The articles below are not meant to mirror or interpret any particular productions at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. They are meant, instead, to be an educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the play (in any production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles (and even characters at times) may differ from what is ultimately produced on stage.

Also, some of these articles (especially the synopses) reveal the ending and other "surprises" in some plays. If you don't want to know this information before seeing the plays, you may want to reconsider studying the information in this section.

William Shakespeare

• Shakespeare: Words, Words, Words
• Not of an Age, but for All Mankind
• Elizabeth's England
• History Is Written by the Victors
• Mr. Shakespeare, I Presume
• A Nest of Singing Birds
• Actors in Shakespeare's Day
• Audience: A Very Motley Crowd
• Shakespearean Snapshots
• Ghosts, Witches, and Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream

• Synopsis
• Characters
• All an Illusion
• Connecting Plots into a Unified Structure
• A Genuine Fairy Kingdom
• Love Is "Where It's At"
• The Force of Imagination
• Folktales, Myths, and Amazons

All's Well That Ends Well

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Too Little Resolution
• Heroic? Or Even Worth Having?
• A World Divided

Antony and Cleopatra

• Synopsis
• Characters
• An Obliquely Tragic Hero

As You Like It

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Touching Elements of Reality
• A "Joyous Comedy"
• A Heightening of Pastoral Conventions
• "Ay, Now Am I in Arden"

Coriolanus

• Synopsis
• Characters
• "His Nature Is Too Noble for the World"

Cymbeline

• Synopsis
• Characters
• The Legend of King Cymbeline

Hamlet

• Synopsis
• Characters
• The Humorous Man
• Provocative, Enigmatic, Popular
• Symbolic Layers
• Revenge and Double Revenge
• The Hamlet Question

Henry IV, Part One

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Tragedy, Mystery, Comedy, and History
• All England in One Play
• Shakespearean History 101

Henry V

• Synopsis
• Fact and Fiction

Henry VI, Parts One, Two, and Three (The War of the Roses)

• Synopsis
• Characters
• What Exactly Is The War of the Roses About?
• Brilliant or Mediocre?

Henry VIII

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Wide-Stage Extravaganza
• History According to Shakespeare
• History or Romance?

Julius Caesar

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Hail Caesar
• The Concept of Honor
• A Play of Paradoxes
• A Play of Organization Men
• Did Julius Caesar Choose to Die?
• Why We Study Julius Caesar
• Discussion Questions and Activities
• The Truth about Julius Caesar

King John

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Bringing King John to the Audience
• The Man Behind the Reputation

King Lear

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Once upon a Time
• "The Most Piteous Tale"
• Broken Bonds
• An Optimistic Tragedy
• The Mightiest, the Vastest, the Most Stirring
• Stonehenge of the Mind
• More Than Word Can Wield the Matter

Love's Labour's Lost

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Current for Us Today
• A Pleasant, Conceited Comedy
• An Epidemic of Language
• "Sport by Sport O'erthrown"

Macbeth

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair
• What Has Gotten into You?
• Macbeth and the Nature of Evil

Measure for Measure

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Paying the Price
• Shakespeare's Measure for Measure

Much Ado About Nothing

• Synopsis
• Characters
• A Play of Wits
• Weightier Than It Seems
• Much More than Nothing
• Benedick's Transformation
• Much Ado about Masking

Othello

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Universal and Persistent Emotions
• Wrestling with Form
• Total Allegiance to Justice
• The Moral Geography of Othello

Pericles

• Synopsis
• Experimenting with a New Genre

Richard II

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Essentially Accurate History
• Distorting and Redefining for Understanding
• Insecure, Incompetent--and Fascinating

Richard III

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Was He Really a Charming Monster?
• The Rise and Fall of Richard
• Destruction and Disorder
• The Heroic Richard III
• The Theatricality of Evil

Romeo and Juliet

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Family Matters
• Romeo and Juliet and the Sonnet of Love
• A Tragedy of Pity and Pathos
• A Plot by Any Other Name
• "More Rich in Matter Than in Words"

The Comedy of Errors

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Shakespeare's First Comedy
• Don't Dismiss As Only a Farce
• In All Seriousness
• Double the Confusion, and the Comedy

The Merchant of Venice

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Neither Comedy, Tragedy, Nor Romance
• A Romantic Comedy
• The Enigmatic Shylock
• A Tale of Outsiders
• Family Relationships
• The Sins of the Father . . .
• My Daughter, My Ducats: Love and Money

The Merry Wives of Windsor

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Herne the Hunter
• A Good Time for All
• Double, or Even Triple, Entendre
• The Same Sir John Still
• For Love or Money
• Let the Sky Rain Potatoes
• A Collection of All Things Familiar

The Taming of the Shrew

• Synopsis
• Characters
• How Many Ways to Tame a Shrew?
• Look More Closely at the Period
• Were Shakespeare's Heroines Liberated?
• Male Chauvinism?
• Laughter and Beyond
• The Affirmation of Affection
• Shakespeare on the Sly

The Tempest

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Suiting the Fashion
• Physical and Emotional Storms
• A Microcosm of Behavior and Emotion
• Prospero's Many Roles
• But This Rough Magic I Here Abjure
• The Outer Show and the Inner Truth

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Don't Take Too Seriously
• Courtly Love
• Shakespeare's First Romantic Comedy
• Dual Personalities in Verona
• The Two Comic Plots of Verona

The Winter's Tale

• Synopsis
• Characters
• The Infection of Jealousy
• Echoes of "The Old Tale"
• Spring Always Comes after Winter

Timon of Athens

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Biological Finance
• An Imperfect and Magnificent World
• Entertaining and Enlightening

Titus Andronicus

• Synopsis
• Looking to the Future with Potential
• Writing What Was Selling
• "And I Will Be Revenged on Them All"

Troilus and Cressida

• Synopsis
• Characters
• An "Iliad" Play
• Where Are the Heroes and Lovers?

Twelfth Night

• Synopsis
• Characters
• Sheer Comedy
• Madness and Folly
• Similarities and Differences
• Ghosts of a Dozen Different Characters
• Times Does Heal; Grief Is Not the End
• What Will the Future Hold?