Shakespeare in a Box: King Lear

by Carl Martin

All the living room's a stage! And your friends and family merely players, with their exits and entrances--and 45 minutes of utter enjoyment. Created by an imaginative drama teacher, The Home Shakespeare Festival is a complete theater company in a box.

Home Shakespeare is like a host-your-own-murder game, but with an intellectual and artistic bent. Beginning with one of Shakespeare's best-known, best-loved works, the tragedy King Lear, each kit has everything needed to produce and act out a thoroughly entertaining 45-minute version of the cards for a director and technical director, showing how to cast the play, direct it, stage it, and create easy sets and sound effects; cards for each of the major parts, with a summary of the character and suggestions on how to play him or her; ten cleverly abridged copies of the script; and key props. For King Lear , the kit includes a retractable stage dagger, a plastic eyeball, and a jester's cap. Each kit also contains a booklet introducing the wonderful world of Shakespeare, acting tips and exercises, recipes for grog, and other good party games to play.

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 12, 2001

Reviews

[Susan Chapek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel lucky to have scored one of these on EBay. This series came out at the turn of the milennium, but 2020 is the perfect time to resurrect these "Shakespeare games" for zooming with distant friends and family. Each box provides everything a group of friends or relatives (or classroom) need to perform a one-hour reader's theater version of the play. I plan to gift this mint condition copy to a young family in my circle.

Editor/adaptor Carl Martin is an established playwright, performer, and educator who knows how to streamline the stories to keep all the Shakespeare (no dumbing down of the lines or the language) while trimming the length to an hour or so.

The box holds individual script booklets (abridged and edited--not simplified or altered as far as the original language, but streamlined mostly for length); game cards to describe the characters (for the actors) and with hints for the "director," and [for those who really can be in the same physical space] some appropriate "props." (For King Lear, the props include a fool's cap, a retractable dagger, and--you guessed it!--plastic eyeballs.)

[Jason D · Rating 5 out of 5]

This set, as well as the Taming of the Shrew "in-a-box," is an absolute blast. I mean, how can you resist a Shakespeare set that includes a retractable dagger and a plastic eyeball? You cannot! If you can track one of these collections down, grab it, then grab some friends and have some fun!

[Tayyab · Rating 5 out of 5]

so much fun