The Caesar Shakespeare gives us is not a cardboard tyrant. That’s important. If Caesar were obviously monstrous, the play would become an easy sermon: “Kill the tyrant and save the republic.” But Shakespeare refuses the easy version. He make...

Macbeth is not hard. It’s human.Here’s the whole play in one simple truth:Macbeth made Macbeth.Let me say that again:The witches tempt. Lady Macbeth pressures. But Macbeth chooses.They light matches all around him—but Mac...

Macbeth’s tragedy ends when fear disappears—not because he becomes brave, but because he becomes numb and falsely certain.Now let’s locate ourselves.HOST:We’re in the final stretch.Act 4 Scene 1: Macbeth returns t...

HOST (George):In Macbeth, evil rarely arrives waving a pitchfork; it arrives wearing a suit and offering a reasonable argument that elections are no longer necessary.That’s how it works in public life—and it’s how it works in this pl...

Macbeth does not become evil because he’s confused. He becomes evil because he learns to call evil “reasonable.”Let me repeat that, because that’s the whole episode:He starts using good logic for a bad purpose.That’s how ...

People call Macbeth a monster. But Shakespeare’s trick is sharper than that: he shows you a man who can still choose—and then shows you the exact moment he starts outsourcing his choices to ambition, marriage, and prophecy.Macbeth—th...

Today I’m taking that same Shakespearean blueprint and placing it in a new world: the 1961 film West Side Story. I’m going to do this in the simplest and clearest way possible:I’m going to tell the film’s story in a straight line.

Welcome back. Verona is split by a feud. Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love, marry in secret, and attempt to outrun a culture trained for violence.Then comes the turning point: Tybalt confronts Romeo, Mercutio fights, Mer...

JULIET (calm, surprising firmness):They call me a child because I am young.But children don’t usually bury their own futures with their own hands.George (gentle):Then let us speak plainly, Juliet.Not as an emblem. Not...

Welcome back. But first, If you’re joining us now for the first time, here is what you must know.Verona is split by a feud between two houses: Montague and Capulet. Romeo Montague meets Juliet Capulet at a feast, and they fall in lov...

A large National Council of Teachers of English teacher survey reported by Education Week lists Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet among the most frequently assigned texts in U.S. And Folger Shakespeare Library notes its edition sales (a ...

Mr. Shakespeare, in our previous episode, you were talking about your life and your literary career.   Could you briefly remark on the uniqueness of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, as well as their importance to literature....

You see, by 1582, when I was only eighteen, I married a lady by the name of Anne Hathaway,  Some scholars Believe that my wive's name was actually Agnes. In any case, our first daughter, Susanna, was born the following year. Twins, Hamn...

Greetings Mr. Bartley. Let me begin by saying that if you visit the city of Stratford-upon-Avon in England today, the first thing you’ll probably hear is that I was born in 1564. We don’t actually know the exact day, but we do know that I wa...

Now when I started this podcast I knew that I wanted to use a somewhat similar device WHERE I interviewed THE characters in Shakespeare's play - that could be very instructive and lots of fun. But first I wanted to get the relatively tedious...

Last episode we placed you in the Bishopsgate area by documentary footprints.Now we move a short distance to the engine room: Shoreditch—where purpose-built theatres rose.Two key playhouses defined the neighborhood:The Th...

GEORGE:Before we start, I want to be fair to the truth.We do not have a neat, signed lease saying:“William Shakespeare, here is your first London room, congratulations.”In fact, Shakespeare’s early London years are famous...

GEORGE:The Bills of Mortality—weekly printed tallies—turned death into public information, something people watched like weather. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)WILL:And once death is printed, it becomes “real” in a new way.But it...

GEORGE:Today: How Plague Trained UsHow plague trained Elizabethan culture—audiences included—toward certain fears and reflexes…and how COVID trained us in remarkably similar ways.GEORGE:Quick reminder: my Shakespe...

GEORGE:Now, When I say “habits of mind,” I mean the reflexes that become automatic:how you interpret a coughhow you feel about crowdswhat you do with your handswhat you believe when you’re afraidwhat you do to fee...

GEORGE:In this series we’ve treated plague as a character.We’ve treated fear as a character.We’ve treated rumor, policy, numbers—characters.Today I want to treat the audience itself as a character.Not a passive crowd....

WILL:When the theatre reopened, the audience came in carrying private funerals.They had lost parents, children, friends, patrons, rivals.They had seen doors marked.They had heard carts.They had watched the city grow q...

GEORGE:Today: trust and betrayal—why people cling to rumors, why institutions lose credibility,and why truth-telling has to be humane… or it fails.GEORGE:Reminder: my Shakespeare can look back from today at his life o...

GEORGE:Today: the social contract.Who bears the risk, who gets protected, who gets blamed, and who gets forgotten—in plague-time England and in COVID-era America.Quick reminder: my Shakespeare can look back from the prese...

GEORGE:Today: Bills of Mortality in plague London—and COVID dashboards in our century.How counting the dead can help a society tell the truth…and how counting can also numb the heart.GEORGE:Quick reminder: my Shak...