Customer Reviews

The Standard Deviants - Shakespeare Tragedies - Othello, Macbeth, King Lear

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really enjoyed this take on Shakespeare, mainly because it breaks down these plays in ways that help you gain an understanding and appreciation of just how good the Bard's work was. I would highly recommend them to anyone studying the plays or just a casual fan. Fun, fun style and good looking and funny actors.

At school I hated Shakespeare, I hated the person who 'taught' it to me and I wasn't all that fond of some of my classmates. Which is a shame because I now love Shakespeare, I think it is something you grow into and begin to appreciate later on. However, many people are put off by school-time study of Shakespeare and as such miss out on something very special.

This DVD does a great job in reducing that. I wish I had this when I was in school. Great watch, very interesting approach. Something for everybody.

I'm a high school English teacher and I thought it was amazing how this video covered every single element of the plays that I focus on, and added a few other insights that I now have added to my plans. Covers language use, symbolism, characters, plot, irony, etc. For Lear includes an interesting bit about how the play incorporates elements of the Fairy Tale. Genuinely interesting from start to (nearly 2 hour long) finish.

As the title of the review suggests, I have used this text has an introductory / revision entry point for some of my English students who were struggling to access the plays. The style and content of the DVD is generally energetic in a low budget sense. More importantly, the DVD managed to provoke a few laughs to engage the audience as they watched and motivated them to think more deeply about the play/s.

Whilst this DVD is not the answer to anything, it could be another useful complimentry educational aid if used in the appropriate way in association with other resources.

Othello

I thought this dvd was a little bit expensive. Although they focused on Shakespeare's classic tragedies like Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear to approach high school level without overdoing it. Shakespeare can be rough for most people but he's still popular among actors, actresses, and directors in the theater. Shakespeare is still seen as the role model for which all other playwrights follow to succeed him. The Standard Deviants should have used better actors and actresses in this dvd series. Not that they didn't do an adequate job but we don't know them or their backgrounds. We assume that when we see Shakespeare on stage that it should be with talented professionals, somebody familiar. The quality was still good though. I would have liked to have a compact disc to accompany it on the computer for the teacher like myself.