Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 37 of 37:

An odd end to this reading project: #Pericles, a flawed work not all written by the Bard...the plot is incoherent, the tone wildly inconsistent, but with the sea journeys & the poignant finale of a family healed, it breathes with magic

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 36 of 37:

#Cymbeline is a dark horse favorite...a weird epic of banished lovers, scheming royals, ancient wars, pastoral comedy, family reunion, supernatural grace...one of his last plays, the Bard revisits his whole career here in giddy fashion

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 35 of 37:

#AntonyAndCleopatra is romantic melodrama on a global scale...the Roman leader and the Queen of Egypt are hedonistic, passionate for each other, even in death...proof that messy love is more inspiring than the cold sober might of Caesar

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 34 of 37:

#Othello leaves me ambivalent: In this searing tragedy, a vile villain in a racist society destroys a loving mixed-race marriage, with fatal results...but the Bard makes Othello too easily manipulated, or is the pressure just too much?

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 33 of 37:

#KingLear is bleak: An elderly king splits his realm among the daughters claiming to love him the most, then loses his home & sanity...the pain of aging is portrayed with such poignant wisdom & beauty, it's the Bard's most haunting play

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 32 of 37:

#Hamlet is the most famous play in the English language and it earns its superstardom...very long, it's a complex serpentine revenge story with a multitude of vivid characters, glorious poetry & a vigorous mix of calamity, humor, mayhem

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 31 of 37:

#Macbeth is magnificently evil and brutal, with witches and prophecies, murders and ghosts, as the fate of the Scottish throne hangs in the balance...a tight plot, legendary soliloquys, it's convincingly spooky, one of my favorite plays

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 30 of 37:

#JuliusCaesar is not about this would-be emperor, he merely shows up to be assassinated...instead, the tragedy is Brutus, a good man who merely aims to thwart tyranny, but instead destroys his life by joining foul-tempered conspirators

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 29 of 37:

#TimonOfAthens is a forgettable and bloodless play with no family strife, no romance, and (almost) no women. Timon gives money to false friends who then reject him when he goes broke. Then he dies bitter and alone in the woods. The end.

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 28 of 37:

#RomeoAndJuliet has some of the most timeless romantic poetry in English, and as a teen, I identified with the giddy doomed young lovers...but now older, I see the tragedy is a society where a feud between families causes pointless loss

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 27 of 37:

#TitusAndronicus is relentless shocking grisly, as an amoral Roman society collapses into a pit of deaths, dismemberments, defilements...it's a bloody frenzied feast of revenges served hot...a horror show so savage, you can't look away

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 26 of 37:

#Coriolanus is a gripping hard-as-iron political drama about a Roman general who's a fierce soldier in wartime but an abhorrent leader of civilians in peacetime...burning with pride & wrath, his one vulnerability is his love for his mom

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 25 of 37:

Done with the history plays, now the tragedies: #TroilusAndCressida is bizarre in tone...the Trojan War as farce, with cartoonish conceited Greeks, witty wordplay and crass insults, half-baked romance...it seems a parody of the Iliad

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 24 of 37:

#HenryVIII is the Bard's last history play & his least...amid all the courtly pomp, one great character: Katherine of Aragon, the eloquent desperate queen, soon divorced & cast aside...the rest of the drama is almost abstract, 100% flat

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 23 of 37:

#RichardIII is the ultimate vile villain...as a duke, he murders friends, brothers, young nephews, anyone in the way of his seizing the crown...he's also witty & fascinating, the action is intense...this may be my favorite history play

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 22 of 37:

#HenryVIPartIII completes the trilogy about this doomed king, overly pious & docile in a ruthless era, as clans battle & betray each other for the English throne in the Wars Of The Roses...this bloody saga pivots from thrills to tragedy

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 21 of 37:

#HenryVIPartII seamlessly continues the story of Part I, with treachery & murder as rivals to the throne take each other out, a bloody rebellion, an unfaithful queen (in more ways than one)...it's a history play recast as pulp fiction

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 20 of 37:

#HenryVIPartI begins with mighty Henry V's death, leaving a young naïve heir & all starts to go to hell...a costly war with France (special guest star: Joan of Arc!), feuding English lords plotting chaos...tension & cliffhangers galore!

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 19 of 37:

#HenryV is a war movie for the Elizabethan stage, with all that genre's strengths & weaknesses...the Battle of Agincourt speech is rousing, the action swift & never dull...but the play shouts with propaganda, more superhuman than human

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 18 of 37:

#HenryIVPartII pales next to Part I's brilliance...the rebellion is quashed with an anticlimactic parley, the lusty brio of debauched Falstaff is now sour sleaze...still, it ends strongly with the old king dead, long live the new one