Shakespeare may not have been a remote husband, new study finds
LONDON — Fresh analysis by a British scholar of a long-forgotten fragment of a letter addressed to the 'Good Mrs Shakspaire' suggests that the renowned playwright William Shakespeare might not have been such a distant husband at all — and that he and his wife, Anne Hathaway, may have lived together in London during a period when the bard wrote some of his greatest plays, including 'Hamlet' and 'Othello.'
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Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Review: ‘Iraq, But Funny' at Lookingglass Theatre is a stunning debut in need of an edit
An apt subtitle for Atra Asdou's 'Iraq, But Funny' might be: 'How the British Caused Every Problem in the Middle East (With a Late Assist from the U.S.A.).' It always cracks me up how, in progressive artistic circles, Brits are exempted from the pervasive disdain for stereotyping. Asdou leans into all of it with confident impunity: the accent, the physical appearance, even the quality of one's teeth. Substitute any other nation and she'd be canceled forthwith. Luckily, Asdou, a veteran of the Second City, also is exceptionally funny and there are moments when the latest, massively ambitious show at Lookingglass Theatre struck me as an astonishingly brilliant first theatrical play, even though it will almost certainly infuriate a decent percentage of the audience that has historically supported that particular theater. It annoyed me, too, in places, especially in its determination never to consider the relative merits of other narratives and, more specifically, its lack of a full consideration of the geopolitical impact of the Holocaust, not to mention the British success in fighting against Nazi sympathizers in the mid-century Middle East. But in others, it took my breath away. And, for the record, I believe from the tip of my head to the bottom of my toes that satirists have no obligation whatsoever to be fair. In essence, Asdou has forged a one-night history of the Middle East from the perspective of Iraqi Assyrians, some of whom have, of course, now settled in the Chicago area. The storyteller is an English, Sgt. Pepper-like buffoon and the style is best described as a blend of Monty Python and Howard Zinn. It reminded me most of a similarly cartoon-styled telling of the history of the same region from the perspective of the Palestinian people that I watched a couple of years ago in a museum inside The Walled Off Hotel, outside Bethlehem in the West Bank. But that was on film; the motor-mouthed Asdou puts it out herself, live and in person. I suspect that Lookingglass was knocked out by the script and basically just told Asdou and director Dalia Ashurina to go ahead and express themselves. But they still have to make it great. In essence, Asdou has created two separate shows and spliced them together. One is a familial story about multiple generations of Iraqi Assyrians (played by Susaan Jamshidi, James Rana and Sina Pooresmaeil) and the struggles of a smart young daughter (Gloria Imseih Petrelli) to both honor the sacrifices of her parents and strike out on her own. The second show is Asdou's British alter-ego explaining the history of how everything led to everything in the Middle East. The first one is funny and sometimes quite moving, but despite the references to reclaiming one's own story from someone else's voice, it's also a very familiar narrative when the Midwest-based children of immigrants from Iraq and Iran write plays. I've reviewed a version of it three times already this season in Chicago: it's at the core of Sadieh Rifai's 'The Cave,' Michael Shayan's 'Avaaz' and Esho Rasho's 'Dummy in Diaspora,' also told from an Assyrian perspective. Those are diverse shows in many ways, my point is that the children of the diaspora telling their own stories. I, for one, am glad to hear them. But the comedic, opinionated political history with zany graphics, audience interaction, physical clowning, improvisational antics fueled by political outrage and one hilariously caustic line after another? No one else is doing that. Not at this level. I don't think Asdou has to drop her family story entirely but this style of satirical theater would work far better at around 90 minutes than almost two and a half hours; that's why Second City pays close attention to length. If Asdou could force herself to cut her weaker material and repetitions and keep the familial arc more fully in the context of her lead comedic character and the geopolitical history that character is telling, she'd really have something here. Right now, that character drops away at the end after morphing into Uncle Sam without explanation. That's all part of the standard anti-colonialist/anti-capitalist narrative, I know, but it still needs explaining for those at the back. Asdou wants her family to triumph and, for the most part, and with this capable director's help, she manages to skillfully navigate her twin impulses of moralistic political activism and sharp-elbowed satirical destruction, even though they are actually contradictory when it comes to their artistic obligations. But the core of this piece is political, not 'thanks Mom and Dad, for all you did,' and that is something Asdou has to face if she wants a show that's viable as well as heartfelt. But after one more draft? Sensational, potentially. Already, if I were a scout looking for colossal young talent, I'd jump on a plane, buy a ticket and see what Asdou can do. Review: 'Iraq, But Funny' (3 stars) When: Through July 20 Where: Lookingglass Theatre, 163 E. Pearson St. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes Tickets: $30-$90 at
Hypebeast
5 hours ago
- Hypebeast
Martine Rose SS26 Explores the Offbeat and the Ordinary
For her SS26 presentation,Martine Roseinvited a market of vendors to the Job Centre in Lisson Grove, London, to pay homage to her memories of visiting the eclectic Kensington Market. With models donning frizzy wigs as they strutted through the heavily draped room, Rose's latest collection continued to combine classic British sportswear codes with her avant-garde sensibilities. Leather pants, cut-off denim shorts, and cinched or skinny fits give a sexy edge to, performance-inspired jackets, football jerseys, and 80s-inspired knitwear. In one look, a model wore a bold-shoulder blazer, cinched at the waist, checked boxers finished with delicate lace, and football knee socks with loafers. Elsewhere, a graphic white tank top was paired with typographically printed trousers and a ruffled skirt overtop. Simultaneously masculine and feminine, and evocative of both the office and the nightclub, the collision of the banal and the eccentric is signature to Rose's ethos, drawing inspiration from her London childhood. Bold hues and unconventional silhouettes make their mark on the collection, adding interest to everyday styles. In a more colorful number, a model wore a hot pink 'Total Participation' sport polo with faded denim, covered in a retro technicolor print. Toying with size and shape, a synthetic rain poncho was blown to outsized proportions, and a black puffer coat boasted a skinny, snug fit at the waist. See the gallery above for a closer look at the full Martine Rose SS26 collection.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
‘A giant parenting group': how online comedians are making a living by laughing about the chaos of kids
Many Instagram-frequenting parents of small children will have seen George Lewis's sketch about two toddlers discussing their feelings of abandonment and relief wrapped in a game of peekaboo. 'It was a normal day, I was just playing with Dad. And then he put his hands in front of his face and he was just gone,' the British comedian and father says in the widely shared video. 'He was behaving so erratically.' Life through a two-year-old's lens – especially in relation to their sleep-deprived parents – is fertile ground for a growing group of online parent comedians whose content is clocking up millions of views. At the heart of the material lies age-old truths: toddlers are sometimes barmy and parenting is often mad. There is a special solidarity among the carers of young children whose days revolve around coaxing vegetables into mouths and bottoms on to potties. In Canada, Farideh Olsen's take on the absurdities of motherhood has one eye firmly on the patriarchy. A sexy husband, her songs suggest, is one who does housework, has therapy and respects women. The 42-year-old singer says it has been a surprise to see how much mothers love watching other mothers 'joking about children and partners and marriage and their love for their children'. 'And, I think that's because a lot of mothering is extremely lonely,' she says. 'You're at home with your kids by yourself, maybe you meet up at a park, but then you don't have the depth of a relationship to joke about your kids.' In the odd three minutes or so that mothers have to check their phones, 'they see something that kind of reflects their life – they find the levity in it,' she says. UK comedian Michael McIntyre was a forerunner when it came to mining laughs from parenting struggles. He told packed theatres well before Covid: 'You never love your children more than when they are unconscious, but still breathing.' Today's troupe of parenting commentators home in on micro moments – a request to cut a toastie exactly in half, the unhinged cackle that follows being asked how the toddler slept, that game of peekaboo – that capture the same sentiment. Farideh thought her music career had been both serious and over before she began writing songs about motherhood. She never considered herself a comedian, nor was she interested in material about parenting, until she had children. While many parenting influencers are female, comedy – including the short-and-sharp social media variety – 'is still very male-dominated', she says. Sydney-based stay-at-home father Sean Szeps' video about the ABCs of parenting – 'A is for 'Absolutely not', B is for 'Brush your teeth'…' delivered with more than a little loopy energy – has almost 40m views on his social media platforms. Last year, all of the 37-year-old's video posts, inspired by his twin seven-year-olds, had a combined 228m views, according to Szeps. Zach Mander, 35, based in Brisbane, has 265,000 TikTok followers and his most popular post has more than 10m views. He has followers all over the world but, as with Szeps, most are in English-speaking countries. They both credit their successes to the pandemic when creative communities on social media took the edge off lockdowns with children. Like their overseas counterparts, they've earned sizeable niche audiences that wouldn't have been accessible to real-world comedians playing clubs with disparate audience members. And they're doing it with disarming honesty. 'Up until that point, my style was incredibly positive, and then the pandemic hit, and I couldn't hold back any more,' says Szeps, who's married to TV presenter and podcaster Josh Szeps. 'Technology,' he says, exploded 'at the same time as we evolved to realising that it would be much better if we were honest about parenthood'. The result was that a 'shit-ton of mums and dads now make an entire career and a living on just sharing what women mostly, but parents overall, have been feeling for decades, which is: it's hilariously hard. It is undeniably difficult. If we can't laugh about it, we're going to sob uncontrollably'. Mander's spoof investigative examinations of Bluey characters, and a video about his children inexplicably losing a slice of pizza in the car (it emerged weeks later 'almost mummified'), are among his biggest hits. 'I've always made content on things that I was experiencing, and it doesn't come much bigger than parenting,' he says. 'I'm amazed we don't talk about it more.' For some, it's really paying off. Szeps, who has a background in social media advertising, has been living off his Instagram account's sponsored content for four years and growth is up 50% year on year. It helps, too, that there will always be new parents. Mander, whose children are two and four, says that because the early years parenting cohort resets about every five years, so does a 'whole lot of people experiencing this for the first time – and those are my cohort'. Viewers are mostly women, both Szeps and Mander say. Szeps, who moved to Australia from America in 2017, has a theory as to why some of the dozen or so male 'power hitters' in the parenting humour space are men talking exclusively to women – and it's down to old-fashioned gender roles. 'We don't want women necessarily to be brutally honest about how hard parenting can be, because that makes us worried for the kids. When a man does it, it's much more accepted,' he says. Parenting jokes sometimes break into the wider satirical space, of course. The Betoota Advocate recently ran a headline: 'Toddler who refuses toast cut the wrong way allegedly ate four servings of vegetable dahl at daycare.' For Szeps, Instagram has become a 'massive, giant parenting group'. 'You still have to navigate the complications. You still have to navigate the perfect parents. You still have to navigate comparison. 'Parenting is so hard, but I don't feel alone in it any more, the way that I felt prior to sharing my experiences online.'
