Shakespeare characters

[sgt_Angua]

You can answer either or both questions: Who is your favorite Shakepearian character and why? Which Shakespearian character would you most like to play?

I really like Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing, and I would have a lot of fun playing her because she has a lot of really good comebacks.
Example:
Messenger: "I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books."
Beatrice: "No. An he were, I would burn my study."

I have always liked Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream, but I haven't seen a portrayal of him that I was satisfied with in a while. Puck is just awesome and I would love to play him.


Edit: Just for fun, can you think of any DQ members who you think should play a specific Shakespearian character? Why that character?

[leapoffaith]

I was puck for halloween two years in a row. I've seen so many shakespeare plays that i don;t like pickin favorite, but off the top of my head, i love the gravedigger in Hamlet.

Hamlet: Whose grave is this, sirrah?
Gravedigger: Mine sir.

[Inretrospect]

Dogberry: Remember, I am an ass

[leapoffaith]

oooh oooh

also both the girls in merchant of venice

[username]

romeo and juliet.........?
sorry, havent been readin' as much william shakespeare as i would like to.

[leapoffaith]

in romeo and juliet: Friar Lawrence

[Inretrospect]

Romeo+Claudio= Really stupid

[leapoffaith]

ooh and i like Mercucio!

[sgt_Angua]

I had forgotten Mercucio, he's really cool. He has some really good lines. He would be fun to play too.

[Varthonai]

Shylock, Richard III, Iago, Mercutio, Mark Antony, Aaron, Feste, Prospero, Guiderius / Polydore, Vincentio / Friar Lodowick... probably more that I'm forgetting.

I'd want to play Shylock most, I think.

[Aval]

I find Shakespearian characters are rather vague in such a way as to allow much creativity on the actors part.

Like, the stylised language distances what is in the script from the actual character themselves, to the point that you only accept the lines and create the character to say them how you wish.

So most Shakespearian characters would be roughly equally fun to play in a way.

[leapoffaith]

ah dam forgot Prospero. Caliban is pretty cool. Bottom, Macbeth, Macduff, those damned witches, Brutus, Toby Belch, Andrew Egucheek (or however you spell it), Fabian (also from twelfth night).. yeah i could go on naming these guys forever (I get around the shakespeare community -.-)

[Varthonai]

I find Shakespearian characters are rather vague in such a way as to allow much creativity on the actors part.

Like, the stylised language distances what is in the script from the actual character themselves, to the point that you only accept the lines and create the character to say them how you wish.

So most Shakespearian characters would be roughly equally fun to play in a way.

That's true of any fictional character who's been around long enough to be reinterpreted multiple times (check out the different ways the Joker has been played over decades of film and TV and Batman comics, for instance) and honestly, it can only go so far. You can't play guys like Richard III or Iago as anything other than Magnificent Bastards without departing from their original conception. You can't make Puck well-behaved, you can't make Shylock docile and forgiving, and you can't make Claudio a level-headed non-retarded dude.

Fabian (also from twelfth night)

Feste... WINS *Mortal Kombat riff*

[leapoffaith]

Feste makes my favorite dick joke

someone (Toby?): Hold thy piece thy knave!
Feste: Well i shall never begin if I... Hold my piece

i swear shakespeare was stoned when he wrote that beautiful beautiful play that is twelfth night

[Varthonai]

i swear shakespeare was stoned when he wrote that beautiful beautiful play that is twelfth night

Tbh, I don't like Twelfth Night much, except for Feste and the amusing prospect of 17th-century Les Yay. I vastly prefer Cymbeline. Imogen is another of my favorite characters, by the way, but I'd honestly rather not play her.

[Thunder]

I'd want to play Shylock most, I think.

Goddammit, that's THREE times I've been beaten to it in one day.

[leapoffaith]

here's an interesting thought: in my play studies class today we watched the final fight scene of hamlet in movies and recordings of it staged from when they first started doing that stuff, and the variety was insane. in one of them, hamlet was on a balcony, and he threw his sword and impaled the king. Robin Williams played the guy who oversees the fight. In Mel Gibson's, it was medieval, and so they used a variety of broadswords and short words on a small stage set up in the court. It's too much to explain right now lol

[Razgriz]

I never really did take a closer insight in Shakespeare's characters...

Though I did have a marvelous time playing as Macbeth. =3

I like my death scene.