All Shook Up: the Shakespeare Connection
English/Language Arts Info Sheet All Shook Up: The Shakespeare Connection "Gosh, running away is so romantic, we’re just like Romeo and Juliet except we’re not dead." —Lorraine, from All Shook Up "The course of true love never did run smooth…" —- from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare Let yourself go! ike a play by Shakespeare seen Shakespeare’s day was going Lthrough a fun-house mirror, All through extreme changes. In Shook Up tips its hat to the Bard, Shakespeare Alive!, his book on especially his magical comedies the Elizabethan era, Joseph Papp such as Twelfth Night and A wrote, "Anxiety gripped individu- Midsummer Night’s Dream. Again als, families and the entire socie- and again, All Shook Up’s dialogue ty…The more things seemed to be refers to Shakespeare, whether it's teetering on the brink of chaos, the Lorraine's longing for the forbidden more Elizabethan society empha- love of Romeo and Juliet, Miss sized old concepts of order." In Sandra quoting Romeo’s, "O! I terms of marriage, that meant am fortune’s fool!" or Dennis establishing a hierarchy that winning Sandra’s heart with a looked a lot like the English Shakespearean sonnet. But beyond simple references monarchy: one ruler (the man) and his "subjects" (the or quotations, All Shook Up is inspired by the magical woman and children). But in plays such as A atmosphere of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies, the Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, and Twelfth idea of getting "letting yourself go" as Chad says, or Night, Shakespeare tests the idea of order by removing losing control in the midst of love.
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