Shatner as Marc Anthony

[A beaker full of death]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6W_ZWBtjMg[/yt]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JLRDIfrCGY[/yt]

 

[ElBurro]

I bought Free Enterprise on dvd a few years ago (long before I got into Star Trek) simply because I love Shatner. I really liked the film, but those last couple of minutes with the Shakespeare rap are just priceless

 

[DevilEyes]

I could imagine an all-Trek "Julius Caesar" with Nimoy as Brutus and DeForest Kelley as Cassius... and who would be Caesar? Maybe Ricardo Montalban

 

[Christopher]

That's a great find. Always cool to see a vintage Shatner performance. And doing Shakespeare? Awesome. And the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech is such a fantastic piece of writing.

It interesting to see Shatner playing Antony. Back in 9th grade English class, we covered Julius Caesar and the teacher assigned the various students parts to read from the play (not as an actual performance, just in-class reading to experience it as a play rather than a text, which was the standard practice for covering Shakespeare in my high school). I was assigned Brutus, but my teacher liked my performance (most students just droned the words, but I acted) and picked me to do "Friends, Romans, countrymen" before the class, so I got to play Antony as well. And based on their portraits on old Roman coins depicted in the book, I based my performance of Brutus on Shatner and my performance of Antony on Mark Lenard. So it's odd for me to see Shatner as Antony, since I've always thought of him as Brutus.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Interesting. I wonder how many Trek fans are aware of the TV pilot Alexander:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95dgLCYtSMI

 

[Christopher]

^Well, the Alexander the Great pilot was shown on the Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000 performance at the Shore Leave convention a few years back, and there were a few hundred people in the audience. I would've liked to see it without the live commentary as well. I mean, how historic is it to have William Shatner and Adam West starring in the same hour of television?

 

[Botany Bay]

Nice find beaker.

 

[DevilEyes]

That's a great find. Always cool to see a vintage Shatner performance. And doing Shakespeare? Awesome. And the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech is such a fantastic piece of writing.

It interesting to see Shatner playing Antony. Back in 9th grade English class, we covered Julius Caesar and the teacher assigned the various students parts to read from the play (not as an actual performance, just in-class reading to experience it as a play rather than a text, which was the standard practice for covering Shakespeare in my high school). I was assigned Brutus, but my teacher liked my performance (most students just droned the words, but I acted) and picked me to do "Friends, Romans, countrymen" before the class, so I got to play Antony as well. And based on their portraits on old Roman coins depicted in the book, I based my performance of Brutus on Shatner and my performance of Antony on Mark Lenard. So it's odd for me to see Shatner as Antony, since I've always thought of him as Brutus.

That's odd, since Shatner's persona is perfectly suited for Mark Anthony and really not for Brutus.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, like I said, I was going by appearance. And I was mostly "playing" Brutus and only did Antony for one scene later on.

Since I was 14 years old at the time, just be glad I didn't model Brutus on the Popeye villain.

 

[duoduck]

I was assigned Brutus, but my teacher liked my performance (most students just droned the words, but I acted) and picked me to do "Friends, Romans, countrymen" before the class, so I got to play Antony as well.

 

[Christopher]

^Err, why did you quote my words without a quote box and add no actual comments of your own?

 

[Bishop76]

I did something similar for Hamlet and actually acted the part of Hamlet, so I was assigned that part every day for the rest of the time we read it. I got the unfortunate nickname of "Hamlet" from the class. The drama teacher walked by and heard me reading, pulled me out of the class, and told me I should try out for plays but for whatever reason I was able to act in front of the class but horrified of doing it on a stage so I never did. It just seemed more fun than droning through it like everyone else.

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, I was hoping to get Hamlet and was disappointed when my English teacher decided to give someone else the lead for a change, so I was assigned Horatio instead. But I requested and got the opportunity to do a special performance of "To be or not to be" before the class. My performance was somewhat influenced by Shatner's on the spoken-word album The Transformed Man.

Let's see, over the course of my high-school career I got to play Brutus, Antony, Mercutio, Iago, Macbeth, Horatio, Hamlet, and probably one or two others who slip my mind right now.