Hi I'm Cynthia Nixon! I'm taking the
Shakespeare challenge.
I'm doing Sonnet 130 for the LGBTQ+
edition. i'm delighted to be doing this
for The Public Theater. I am a long time
devotee of The Public since I was six
and I saw
my first Shakespeare which was HAMLET
with Stacy Keats, James Earl Jones and
Colleen Dewarst. I've only worked there once - I played
Juliet there at The Public when I was 21. Long time
ago. So I'm going to recite this poem and i encourage you to take the challenge, recite it in your own
way, make up a dance that is inspired by it
do a painting, do a macrame, do a collage - you name it.
And post it so we can see it.
This is uh I've chosen this sonnet
because I think it is the funniest.
Not that many of them are laugh out
loud funny. I think this one is. And I think it's great because in
addition to just being silly
and making fun of romantic
similes and the poet speaking about his beloved in the
most ridiculous and elevated terms it
also
slyly questions really what these
standards of beauty and femininity are
that we adhere to.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
