How is it that after 38 plays, the Bard of Avon could possibly find the time to write 154 sonnets as well? Maybe he just wrote them for fun. Either way, his sonnets have not received nearly the same amount of attention that his plays have received, but they are still just as well crafted and just as lyrical.
In Love Is My Sin, a theatrical reading of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the internationally acclaimed director Peter Brook weaves together a collection of sonnets loosely tied to themes such as jealousy, separation and death. Even though there is no plot or character development, the sonnets work like short scenes. The actors, Michael Pennington and Natasha Parry, recite the poems like musicians playing their instruments. Pennington is especially adept at performing the work with his delicious baritone voice.
I went home and pulled out my Works of William Shakespeare to reread the poems just to marvel at how quickly Shakespeare could deliver emotion and character in poems only three stanzas and one couplet long.
