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I've made a community icon! This may not be worthy of a post, but it's pretty and I wanted to show it off. ;) (It's not the one I'm using for this post.)

Also, because you knew it had to happen, the obligatory History Plays survey: which one's your favorite? ;)

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I'm partial to the whole Henry VI saga, because ... dude, seductive Frenchwomen and severed heads and pirates and fake blind guys and more severed heads and Queen Margaret leading armies and young Richard being all snarky-like and did I mention the severed heads? What's not to like?

Henry VI isn't quite my favorite -- as anyone who's spoken to me for more than about five minutes knows, that would be Richard II -- but I do have a deep and abiding affection for it. Especially as the best stage production I've ever seen was the RSC's Henry VI/Richard III cycle about four years ago, which I saw on tour in Ann Arbor, when I was an undergrad at Michigan). The RSC residency was among the happiest two weeks of my life (if you sort of mentally snip out the part where I was finishing my BA thesis. Which was on Richard II, in fact, so I had the Shakespeare's Histories Full-Immersion Experience that semester. Never really recovered from it either).

What I think is sort of funny is that you get the whole spiel about how they're little-produced and not really all that good (less so now; their critical stock seems to be rising) and then every ten years or so someone stages a major production and they get rediscovered...

Henry IV part I, because I have a deep and abiding love for Glendower. Also, I saw about half the RSC Histories during my study abroad year in England, and, well, Prince Hal was brilliant.

Yay Glendower! I'm going to be playing him for DSP (originally the part was going to be played by

the_alchemist, but she's been promoted and is going to be Prince Hal).

Sounds like you saw the half I didn't see! I wish I could have seen both. (I especially wish I could have seen Sam West play Richard II, because... *loves*)

I was doing a go-back-&-reread-more-obscure-Shakespeare thing not so long ago, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed King John (http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/King_John/).

Diverting slightly from Shakespeare, two of the plays in my M.A. thesis were Peele's Edward Longshanks and Marlowe's Edward II. Definitely a contrast between two radically different monarchs.

I'm kind of partial to Richard III. Death, seduction, dastardly deeds, death, deposition of kings, death, dastardly deeds, epic battles, death, evil, villainy, curses, death...

King John all the way.

I'm quite fond of King John, myself. Someday I would love to play Constance, which is a role that would really emphasize my strengths as an actor (i.e. a willingness to be a raving psychotic)... ;)

I just read Edward Longshanks not that long ago! It's a weird play. I have the impression that it never really figures out what sort of play it wants to be...

Heck yeah, ditto that! They're not the best from a literary standpoint, IMO, but they're so ridiculously cool that I'm absolutely in love with them.

...as anyone who's spoken to me for about five minutes knows. ;)

Definitely! And that's without mentioning killing all the lawyers, and all the land being in common, and conjuring up evil spirits and more severed heads etc. I think Richard III is still my favourite individual play, but the first tetralogy as a whole is TEH BEST THING EVAH!!!

If we're purely looking at Shakespeare, I have to go with Richard III (with second place going to the final part of Henry VI). He's just so beautifully snarky. All the time. Even when he's dying. And the seduction scene with Anne is nothing short of sheer brilliance.

Richard II. Definitely. I never used to have much of an opinion on it, and then I saw Derek Jacobi as Richard, and my heart was given away freely. It's possibly one of the wordiest of the plays, but I just love all of Richard's speeches. And of course, John of Gaunt's dying speech, which everybody knows. ::hearts::

It's possibly one of the wordiest of the plays

That's part of its charm!

I wrote my BA thesis on Richard II, as mentioned above, mostly because I'd read it the summer before I started on the thesis, and although I'd expected to really like it based on what I knew about it going in, it sort of left me cold: I admired the language but it didn't do a thing for me emotionally, and this bothered me enough (being a fledgling Shakespearean) that I needed to work this out. Thus I got a thesis. Also over the course of the year I spent writing the thing the play sort of worked its way under my skin and since then has steadfastly refused to leave me alone. (Needless to say, at some point I can't trace, I figured it out... ;) )

Henry V is great theater, but it's edged out by Richard III in my affections.

Henry VI pt. 1, because one well done Joan of Arc coming right up! But really, and totally, and unquestionably, Henry V. Love.

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