Excellent Version of the Scottish Play.
354550
Macbeth is one of my favorite Shakespearean tragedies. This version seems to be from the full text, because there are scenes I've not seen in any other film version of the play. Patrick Stewart is excellent. His Macbeth is somewhat reluctant to take the first step to becoming king, but later embraces his villiany. Kate Fleetwood is also very good as Lady Macbeth who moves in an arc the reverse of her husband. The setting is somewhere like Stalin's Russia in the 30's, although everything remains Scottish. The weird sisters are also an interesting touch.
4145883
Lovely adaptation of Trollope.  The actors are superb and handily capture the humor the spirit of the story. The humour and satire shine through marvelously.
3964472
This is probably the best-ever version of Wilde's play. The two Earnests (Firth and Everett) are gorgeous and hilarious. Lady Bracknell (Dench) is magnificently scary. Parker's "knight in shining armor" visions are wonderful.
2933887
This is a fantastic version of TAMING OF THE SHREW.  For anyone who is interested in really studying the text (and hearing it spoken correctly), this is the version for you!  The actors speak clearly and loudly and the main point is that they completely understand what they are saying - (yipee!) They also have an uncanny way of "speaking the speech" which gets it across to the audience as clear as day.  You don't need to understand 'Shakespearean verse' to see this performance.  The actors breeze through this with ease and simplicity and look like they are having a blast - which I belive they are!
52625
I purchased this audio recording as a learning tool for my AP English Literature and Composition class. Shakespeare is better understood when it is read with expression, and students approaching the text for the first time can't manage to do that. Illuminaries of the English stage add much to this performance. Paul Scofield as Lear does an excellent job of expressing royal rage and arrogance. Kenneth Branaugh mixes truth with humor and gets away with it, just as a king's fool should. I recommend this product to anyone who wants to hear King Lear done well. I am coupling this audio CD with the DVD of the Sir Lawrence Olivier version of the play.
1456927
I enjoyed both this and the Julie Christie, Alan Bates versions.  Fun to be able to compare the interpretations of roles between the two productions.
3950749
Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy (which was said to be cursed) is presented in this eBook in both the original text and a modern translation. This, I think, is ment to help people understand what's going on and what the characters are saying.
443358
I went to see the play in a pub here in D.C. where I live.  It is performed by five actors, who double as musicians, and at times as the stage set.  There is no stage; the play is performed in the midst of the audience, indeed with audience participation!  It is hilarious, and profound.  It is almost entirely performed in verse, except for a section in the second act where it is prose.  It is a brilliant piece of theatre, so I bought the script because the language is an integral part of the plot.  I highly recommend it.
493686
This version of Shakespeare's THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is marvelous great fun.  It takes the play, blows the dust off it, and presents it as it was originally meant to be seen--based on the Italian Commedia dell'arte. In Shakespeare's time, actors were expected to be tumblers and acrobats as well as just speakers of words.  When you see Marc Singer and Fredi Ostler perform the acrobatics and speak the words simultaneously and beautifully you can feel the vigorous joy Shakespeare meant when he wrote this play.  Watching this version of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, you can sense the joy the actors are feeling as they act out this happiest of Shakespeare's works.  If you are looking for a
 play by Shakespeare that will make you laugh out loud, I heartily recommend this production of the SHREW.  I have one for myself and have bought
two others for friends. Enjoy.
526640
This is the best version I've seen.  Yes, it modifies Shakespeare's language just a little bit, but it is great to show to my high school students.  Besides, it makes it less work to watch and understand.  The acting is awesome, way better than Franco Zeffirelli's version, and it's excellent that it was actually filmed in Verona, Italy.  The slight language liberties is much more tasteful than the stupid modernization with Leonardo DiCaprio.  This version makes the play enjoyable to watch; I didn't have to laugh at the acting or the inappropriate modifications.  It is worth the money to buy!
737257
Written in 1919 and performed in Atlantic City in 1920, this play (an early version of "Anna Christie," which was staged on Broadway in 1921) remained unpublished until Leslie Comens recovered the typescript from the Library of Congress and edited it in 1982. Since "Anna Christie" is one of O'Neill's better known plays (and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), this early version has not received much critical or theatrical attention, but fans of Eugene O'Neill will certainly appreciate it.

The basic plot of "Chris Christophersen" is the same as "Anna Christie": Anna, the daughter of the title character, finds her estranged father in New York City. Formerly a sailor on transcontinental voyages, Christophersen now captains a small barge that hugs the Atlantic coast, always in sight of land. He has sworn off "dat ole devil" the sea, blaming his career for robbing him of a fulfilling life, killing the male members of his family, and causing him to neglect his own wife and children. When his daughter arrives, the former sailor is determined to keep her from falling in love with either the sea or anyone associated with it.

The main difference between this version and "Anna Christie" is that, in the later play, Anna is a down-and-out prostitute who hides her former life from her father. In this version, the roles are reversed: Anna has been raised by a proper British family, and it is her father who tries to clean up his act. Although some scenes and bits of dialogue are shared between the two versions, the divergence is enough to make this earlier draft feel like an entirely different play.

But which one is better? Most would agree that "Anna Christie" is a vast improvement largely because Anna's character is more fully realized. Yet the earlier version (in spite of its rather rushed, lame ending) does a better job, I think, portraying the relationship between two strangers who happen to be father and daughter. There is much to recommend both versions, but what will probably most fascinate fans of O'Neill is the process through which a great playwright resuscitates a play that has merit but isn't quite polished and turns it only one year later into a theatrical success.
990575
This piece is excellent for Shakespearean lovers who enjoy classics. It has great acting for the times and portrays the plays in entirety while maintaining our attention.
2382458
This play was revived at the Pitlochry Theatre Festival last summer and was outstanding.  It is very suitable for play-reading groups because there are plenty of varied characters.

Amateur drama groups seeking rights to play it will have great success but the set needs to be as intricate and detailed as in the script.  Although originally written in the 40`s this sort of crime thriller never dates.
1614048
Loved the books, so I was very pleased with the actors' portrayal of the characters.  Sam Heughan is exactly how a book reader would picture Jamie. The tv story covered the main events in the book pretty well,  although there were changes.  The costumes were beautiful;  the sets fantastic and the scenery in Scotland is breathtaking.  The story also gives a history lesson and look into life in Scotland at that time
2572775
It goes without saying that this classic production is well-worth purchasing--it is one of the great dramatisations of Shakespeare. Highly recommended.
4003653
As part of the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge, I needed to read a play and what better play to read than The Tempest having recently read and adored Margaret Atwoods retelling in Hag-Seed.  I have an even greater appreciation of Hag-Seed having read the original again.  It had been more than twenty years since Ive read Shakespeare.  I found it simultaneously difficult to navigate the Old English and thematically extremely relevant to modern day.  There is so much complexity within this brief play, that it is no wonder that people study Shakespeare to such lengths!

This play takes place on an Island where the magician, Prospero, and his daughter Miranda have been living the last 12 years, since Prosperos exile from his position as Duke of Milan.  The only other person on the Island during this time is Calaban, son of the evil witch, Sycorax, who used to live there as well.  Ariel is a fairy who does the bidding of Prospero.  Calaban is also enslaved to Prospero, having attempted to rape Miranda.  Prospero creates a tempest  which bring his enemies by shipwreck to his Island.  He scatters them across the Island such that Ferdinand the Kings son is separated from all others and will encounter Miranda, both falling in love with each other under Ariels spell.  Gonzalo, Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian are landed together.  During their time on the Island, Antonio and Sebastian plot against the kings (Alonsos) life, assuming that Ferdinand has perished.  Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano develop an alliance that intends to murder Prospero, so that they can take over the island.  Finally, all come together.  Prospero, with urging from Ariel, forgives all and all is calm.  Prospero, a thinly disguised Shakespeare, asks for applause to end his imprisonment.

There is much duality of humanity and the world represented within this play.  Themes of good versus evil, magical vs earthly, land versus sea, honest versus dishonest, free versus imprisoned, sober versus drunk pervade this play.  I loved the infusion of music, poetry and magic within this play.  There is obvious brilliance to the themes and the structure of the play.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and found many unique characteristics setting it apart from some of Shakespeares other works that Ive read.
1097075
This is a beautifully played version of one of the most enthralling novels I have ever read, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South.  All roles, both primary and supporting, were spot-on realizations of their characters as written for the screen and magnificently delivered.  Although I hesitate to make distinctions among the uniformly appealing cast, I found Anna Maxwell Martin's Bessy brilliant, compelling, and, if it's not an oxymoron to say so, breathtakingly understated.  At times I could not make out Richard Armitage's words (as John Thornton), but his face said what I could not hear, and other reviewers do not mention the problem.

I did have some difficulty with the translation from text to screen, not because I was looking for a faithful rendering, but because I felt some of the changes did the screen version a disservice.  I mention these next, giving a ***SPOILER ALERT*** for those who do not know the story:

In the movie, the meeting of Margaret Hale and John Thornton is changed from the drawing room to the factory, where Thornton roughs up and fires a worker for smoking.  Although his motives are depicted as worthy--the safety of everyone else--physical violence is not in the character as developed either in the book or on screen.  More integrally, Gaskell's scene in the drawing room provides a more apposite premise to the early stages of Margaret and Thornton's relationship than the factory scene does.  As Gaskell depicts the situation, these two cannot communicate with one another--about mere trifles.  To have instead Margaret's outrage at Thornton's treatment of his workers at the factory is heavy-handed, especially when her noncomprehension of his positions and policies can be easily shown in other ways, as Gaskell demonstrates.

The movie evidently opted to eliminate the dialect in which Gaskell had the working class characters speak.  I think retention of at least some dialect would have helped to accentuate the class divide and portray it as it existed, as well as to highlight the openness of the characters on both its sides to reaching across it.

The movie's final scene is again changed for the worse from the book. ***SPOILERS*** In the book, Margaret and Thornton meet again at a dinner party that segues two days later to a private meeting in a closed study, where all comes clear and their feelings for one another are gently and humorously acknowledged.  In the movie, they meet, improbably, at a railway station during the simultaneous (!) stopovers of trains traveling in opposite directions, each character coming from a simultaneous (!) visit to the place associated with the other one.  Then, although it's the 1850s, they kiss publicly on a bench--about which another reviewer has commented.  The story doesn't need the contrivance.  Line by line, Gaskell's quiet ending brings tale where it needs to be, providing the natural next step of what has been developing all along, such that the reader can imagine the contented life these two will lead together.  The movie's end was less well prepared, in addition to being contrived, and as it faded I imagined the discord between the two continuing after the honeymoon.