Shakespeare News in the US: February 10-16

Omar Sharif to be King Lear

Variety reported this week that Omar Sharif, known for his Golden-Globe winning performance in Lawrence of Arabia as Sherif Ali and also for his starring roles in Funny Girl with Barbara Streisand and the title role in Doctor Zhivago, will take up the mantle of Shakespeare’s King Lear in a new film that will set the play in modern-day Egypt. Egyptian writer Khaled Al Khamissi will adapt the play for the screen. Al Khamissi said about this chance:

“One of my oldest memories as a child is hearing my grandfather say that Shakespeare was not really English but in fact Arab, and his real name wasn’t Shakespeare but Al-Sheikh Kabeer. Forty years later, I was given the chance to make my grandfather’s dream tangible. I am going to write the story of Al-Sheikh Kabeer, ‘Al-Sheikh’ Lear, the Egyptian Lear.”

It has not yet been announced who will direct the film, though an announcement is expected in the next few weeks. It will begin shooting in late 2010.

If Shakespeare Wrote Valentines

This week the BardFilm blog, which we highly recommend, highlighted one man’s idea of what Shakespeare would have written as a Valentine. William Henry Ireland, a notorious forger of Shakespeare documents, created a fake love letter from “Willy” to his wife, Anne. It includes this poem:

Is there inne heavenne aught more rare
Thanne thou sweete Nymphe of Avon fayre
Is there onne Earthe a Manne more trewe
Thanne Willy Shakespeare is toe you.

In modern spelling, that’s:

Is there in heaven aught more rare
Than thou, sweet nymph of Avon fair?
Is there on Earth a man more true
Than Willy Shakespeare is to you?

Worthy of the Bard himself? For a time, Ireland fooled Shakespeare aficionados and experts.