Alexi Sargeant is assistant editor of First Things. He studied English and Theater at Yale University, graduating in 2015. He has written for the American Conservative, Commonweal, New Criterion, and Aleteia, and his plays have been performed in Philadelphia and at Yale. He previously served as the Junior Fellow at First Things.
Did you hear the one where . . . ?
Paul Menzer has heard it. He’s heard the one with the drunk Richard III, the one with the fat Ghost of Hamlet’s Father stuck in the trapdoor, the one with the father–daughter pair playing Romeo and Juliet, the one where Othello’s makeup rubs off on Desdemona’s face to give her a beard. In fact, he’s probably heard several variations on any given Shakespearean anecdote, a handful verifiable, but most patently recycled, exaggerated, or apocryphal—yet in a different sense, in Menzer’s paradoxical view, no less true. Continue Reading »
Anecdotal Shakespeare: A New Performance Historyby paul menzerbloomsbury, 253 pages, $29.95Did you hear the one where . . . ? Paul Menzer has heard it. He’s heard the one with the drunk Richard III, the one with the fat Ghost of Hamlet’s Father stuck in the trapdoor, the one with the . . . . Continue Reading »
His face boasts a geological set of wrinkles, which fold seismically with each witticism or bold-faced lie he speaks. His body is impossible, too fat for any man to still be alive, yet there he is. Somehow both old as the hills and joyful as the sun, his greatest lie is the one he seems (almost) to . . . . Continue Reading »
Riddle-making is a lost art—but not an irretrievable one. A. M. Juster's translation of Saint Aldhelm's Riddles has received praise from many outlets. Writing in the Chicago Tribune, John Wilson discusses the genesis of the work:Aldhelm was a prominent churchman in Anglo-Saxon England. Born . . . . Continue Reading »
I caught Star Wars: The Force Awakens with my family over the past weekend. Before we got to the scrolling text on starry background (greeted by audience cheers) we were bombarded by trailers, mostly for movies about aliens blowing things up, with the occasional detour into mutants and/or Egyptian . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m grateful to my parents for many reasons. But one thing I’m especially grateful about these days is that they left issues of First Things lying around our house. Even when I was a wee bit younger than the target audience, I loved reading Father Neuhaus’s warm or trenchant reflections in the . . . . Continue Reading »
Forget the War on Christmas. The real battle raging out there is the War on Advent. Rather than beginning a season of prayful preparation for the Lord's coming, the commercial world would have us believe we are already over a month into an early, raucous Christmas feast. An inverted White Witch has . . . . Continue Reading »
Hillary Clinton
It must be nice, it must be nice
To have Washington on your side
Bernie Sanders
Scratch that
This is not a moment it’s the movement
. . . . Continue Reading »
The long-running British sci-fi staple Doctor Who has quietly become one of the most pro-life shows on television. Under the tenure of showrunner Steven Moffat, there has been a strong pro-life subtext for several seasons of Doctor Who. Even before Moffat took the reins of the show, he wrote a pair . . . . Continue Reading »
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is launching a three-year project to commission 36 pairs of playwrights and dramaturges to translate the works of Shakespeare into English. Yes, English. John McWhorter in the Wall Street Journal expresses support for this plan, saying, “Much of Shakespeare goes . . . . Continue Reading »
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