Dear readers,
This was an exceptional year personally, professionally, and publicly. We had a rocky election. The Shakespeare community had debate with the (still-ongoing) #1Lear debate and the discovery of a square Curtain theatre. I got a tenure-track job and moved to a recognizable coast. I find myself, as we close on final exams and essays, reflecting on my favorite posts here on Bite Thumbnails this year.
The Suffering of Mephistopheles
This student approach to Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, a block-buster of the late 1580s and ’90s, came up with what I felt was a brilliant approach to the Seven Deadly Sins interlude. In particular, the treatment of Mephistopheles and Wagner popped a few new questions open for me in terms of the characterization of Faustus, and to what degree the play anticipates our emphasizing with him.
When Birnam Burns: The Silence, Stress, and Sacrifice of Macbeth
Because Shakespeare films are few and far between, it was nice to get a chance to review this limited-release film chocker-block full of talent. While only about a third of the Shakespeare text was used in the film, it was an interesting interpretation, situating PTSD into a feudal Scottish setting without valorizing bloodshed.
“Mirthful comic shows”: Original Practices, Richard III, and the Curtain
By attending the Blackfriars by Southwest conference, I had a chance to catch a play in a quirky recreated-Globe setting on a riverbank in Austin. Something between a national park hike and Medieval Times™, Audiences were convivial, comfortable, and I suspect feel less of the pressure to perform a kind of learned, conscientious, and attentive set of behaviors linked with high art.
February Blogroll: Post-Job-Search Edition
Last winter I reflected on the job-market process—a particularly arduous process that cycles once a year and puts one in a place where you don’t know if you will continue in your study that took on average six year to master. If you do, there is no guessing where you will end up geographically. A number of folks have found this post useful, so I include it here as one of your favorites.
I saw a number of performances that either didn’t make it onto the blog due to the new semester at a new job (A Civil War Christmas, Parfumerie, Little Shop of Horrors, Hold These Truths, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Oregon Trail) or have been published elsewhere (Coriolanus, Love’s Labour’s Lost and I, Malvolio). I am looking forward to seeing more of what the Portland area has to offer and sharing my thoughts.
Many thanks for reading!
Elizabeth

P.S. Some other great year-end best-of lists:
- from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Shakespeare & Beyond blog, “The biggest Shakespeare stories of 2016.”
- from the New Yorker magazine, “The Sixteen Most-Read New Yorker Blog Posts of 2016.”
- from The Thesis Whisperer blog, top ten posts of the year and of all time in their recent post, “Seasons greetings and some holiday reading.”