Recess: What's in a Name?

What's in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet."

Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II

The Shakespeare Club is a well-used handle; our little group is hardly the first. There is a long history of such organizations and I can hardly imagine a better scenario than that of Shakespeare Clubs springing up across the nation, the continent...indeed, the world. Peace would reign as we all stuffed our noses into the plays and whispered iambic verse.

As I researched a history of Shakespeare Clubs, I was particularly drawn to the Victorians. Women in corsets gathered to study the stories of the Bard. How those laces must have popped on a warm summer evening as they pored over the gory shenanigans in "Titus Andronicus."

Mr. Shakespeare, in a particularly colorful mood and clearly wishing to boost his box office, wrote a bloody potboiler chock-a-block with murder, rape, severed hands and tongues, and neighbors served up in a pie. Vapors — big time, I'm guessing.

Here's what our club does not look like:

The Dallas Shakespeare Club, circa 1911.

Dallas photo from the Dallas Historical Society