Shakespeare Headlines! Trivia Quiz

Answer: King Lear

Among the greats who have played this challenging role have been James Earl Jones, Brian Cox, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Derek Jacobi and, of course, Olivier. In recent years, Lear has risen over Hamlet as the preeminent Shakespearean tragedy, with Gloucester's on-stage blinding considered by many to be the most terrifying moment in Shakespeare's canon.

Answer: Henry IV, Part 1

Prince Henry and his more accountable, mature, and boring counterpart, Harry Hotspur, provide excellent foils to each other and stand as examples of the conflicts facing 20-somethings, even today. To party and sloth around? Or to get a job and settle down? One of the more engaging history plays, "1 Henry IV" has been produced myriad times in many different guises. One I'll always remember is "My Own Private Idaho", a contemporary retelling starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.

Answer: The Comedy of Errors

"The Comedy of Errors" is accepted as Shakespeare's shortest play, clocking in at 1787 lines. For comparison, Hamlet has about 4040 lines, with the character Hamlet yakking away for almost 1600 lines just by his lonesome. "The Comedy of Errors" is also one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, appearing in 1593-4.

Although largely farcical - it's kind of like an Elizabethan version of "Three's Company" - there are serious themes of insanity and the dissolution of the feudal structure in Europe.

Answer: Romeo and Juliet

Every year, millions of high school freshmen plow through "Romeo and Juliet" - I mean, what can be better for a 14-year old mind than a story of underage sex, suicide, murder, alcohol abuse, unrequited gay love, disobeying of parents, and gratuitous profanity and violence? And they think "The Hunger Games" is not suitable for young audiences! But seriously, "Romeo and Juliet" remains a perennial favorite, inspiring many productions and adaptations.

The DiCaprio/Danes movie was better than it had a right to be, though only because the Nurse and Mercutio are played beautifully.

Answer: Twelfth Night

One of Shakespeare's explorations of gender roles, "Twelfth Night"'s Viola is one of his strongest female roles (even though she is set on marriage). Disguised as a man, Viola fends off advances by both male and female suitors. To add to the comedy, her twin brother - whom she thinks was lost in the shipwreck, also shows up, causing much confusion as to who is whom.

Answer: Julius Caesar

One of the most rhetorically powerful plays, "Julius Caesar" has lent myriad sayings and phrases to the English language. Traditionally taught in sophomore English classes (partly because, back in the late 19th century, boys' prep schools taught it because it had the least female roles (two) of almost any Shakespeare play), "Caesar"'s language is rich in metaphor, imagery, irony, and other elements and techniques of classical rhetoric.

Although many see Cassius as a minor league version of Iago, that didn't stop him from ending up in one of Satan's mouths in Dante's Inferno - along with Brutus, of course.

Answer: The Tempest

Easily both my favorite Shakespeare play and my favorite piece of literature of all time, "The Tempest" is a complex tale of colonial politics, control and manipulation, father-daughter dynamics, magic, forgiveness, and a thinly veiled metaphor for the trials and tribulations of any director trying to oversee a production threatening to escape his or her control. Now seen as one of the Bard's greatest plays, "The Tempest" is a technically challenging production because of the special effects needed to pull off the extensive magic and illusions. "The Tempest" also has some of the most beautiful language in any Shakespeare play - fitting, since it was the last play wholly penned by Shakespeare himself - and thus can be seen as Shakespeare saying farewell to the stage and to stagecraft which, after all, is nothing but a baseless vision that ends soon after it begins. Can you tell I love this work!

Answer: Macbeth

One of the four great tragedies along with "Hamlet", "Othello", and "King Lear", "Macbeth" is one of the most oft-quoted and referenced Shakespearean creations. A beautiful synthesis of history, psychology, sociology, and poetry, "Macbeth" dives into the abyssal deeps of human motives, insecurity, control, and obsession. Whether it's Lady Macbeth's OCD or Macbeth's guilt-stricken visions, "Macbeth" serves as an ultimate testament to the inexorable draw of chaos on our desperately reasoning human souls.

Answer: Othello

Wow. Where to start with this epic of genius? Besides nailing the feelings of ANY insecure male married to a beautiful woman, Shakespeare manages to breathe life into Othello, a respected general, soldier, and Moor who would be, for Shakespeare's audience, as exotic and otherworldly as any alien in a contemporary movie. Couple that with Othello's perpetual and self-imposed need to prove himself to a foreign authority, and Iago's maniacal and memorable emotional complexities and insanities, and you have a play that can hold its own. You also have three powerful female archetypes: the innocent virgin (Desdemona), the seductress (Bianca), and the wise wife (Emilia). Truthfully, an entire course could be designed around this play.

Answer: Hamlet

Not just a small town, "Hamlet" ranks as perhaps the greatest of Shakespeare's plays in terms of psychological and conceptual depth. It focuses on character, not just action, and has divided critical audiences for centuries in terms of how they see Hamlet himself, his motives, and his actions. Written around 1600, "Hamlet" is bracketed by several comedies - "As You Like It", "Twelfth Night", and "The Merry Wives of Windsor" - yet explores melancholy and insanity, self-absorption and metaphysics, the supernatural and the unsettlingly natural as no other play has ever done.

Although the titular character becomes incessantly annoying after a while, he stands as an analog to every college graduate who's ever come home and found that the world he or she left behind is not the one he or she wants to return to.