Plenty of Nothing

Ach, neige, du Schmerzensreiche

One in a series of postcards depicting Gretchen's dramatic moments from Goethe's Faust. Collect them all here.

Margaret of Anjou

Margaret of Anjou was born on this date in 1430. She married Henry VI of England and was de facto ruler of England during part of the Wars of the Roses. Here she is played by Peggy Ashcroft in one of those Shakespeare history plays. Source.

Sybil Thorndike

Sybil Thorndike, the actor for whom George Bernard Shaw wrote the part of St Joan, died on June 9th, 1976, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Source.

Tsubouchi Shōyō

Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859 - 1935), playwright, professor and critic, translated Shakespeare into the language of kabuki, and had a long-running argument with Mori Ōgai. Source.

Lady Nijō in Top Girls

Though she wrote them during the 14th century, Lady Nijō's confessions did not emerge from an imperial storage room until 1940, so there's no body of noh, ukiyo-e or kabuki to go with them. But Caryl Churchill put Lady Nijō in her play Top Girls in 1982. Source.

The Tudors in Popular Culture

1910        "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am" (song)

1933        The Private Life of Henry VIII (film)

1936        Mary of Scotland (film)

1936        Tudor Rose (film)

1937        Gloriana (film)

1948        Anne of the Thousand Days (play)

1960        A Man For All Seasons (play)

1964        "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am" (song)

1966        A Man For All Seasons (film)

1969        Anne of the Thousand Days (film)

1970        The Six Wives of Henry VIII (TV series)

1971        Elizabeth R (TV series)

1971        Mary, Queen of Scots (film)

1986        Lady Jane (film)

1998        Elizabeth (film)

2001        The Other Boleyn Girl (novel)

2007-10    The Tudors (TV series)

2007        Elizabeth: The Golden Age (film)

2008        The Other Boleyn Girl (film)

2009        Wolf Hall (novel)

2012        Bring Up the Bodies (novel)

2013-17    Reign (TV series)

2015        Wolf Hall (TV series)

2018        Mary Queen of Scots (film)

2020        The Mirror and the Light (novel)

Patrick Stewart as Launce

And his dog Crab. Source.

Jean Arthur as Peter Pan

Jean Arthur played Peter Pan opposite Boris Karloff's Hook on Broadway in 1950 and 1951. Source.

Japanese Word of the Day: Takarazuka

Yachiyo Kasugano as Prince Genji, 1952. Source. TakaWiki.

A hundred years ago or so it was a common strategy of urban railway companies to construct a public attraction at the end of a new line to help ensure a regular ridership. That's how Ottawa's Britannia Park came about. In 1913 the owners of Osaka's Hankyu Railway put up a grand theatre at the end of the Osaka-Takarazuka line, and in so doing helped create a new kind of Japanese spectacle, the Takarazuka Revue.

Takarazuka employs a large all-female troupe of singers, dancers and actors who perform lavish showpieces mixing Western and Japanese entertainment traditions. The performers, many of whom specialize in male roles, have a huge female fan following.

James A. Michener, aware that the Japaneses novelists of his day liked to send their characters to the theatre, structured his 1954 novel Sayonara around the Takarazuka Revue.

Medieval Ladies, 1977