It's Got to be Funny!

Perspective CHALLENGE:

Take a look at the three scenes from dramatic plays (see below). They are quite serious. How would you go about making them funny? Click here to read an example of a serious scene from Shakespeare’s MacBeth that was re-written to be really funny.

Copy/paste the scene you choose and your comic redo into an email. Send your renditions to the TDHS Librarians and we will post them to the TDHS social media pages. Please use only your initials as a signature.

King Richard III

KING RICHARD III : O Ratcliffe, I have dream’d a fearful dream! What think’st thou—will our friends prove all true?

SIR RICHARD RATCLIFFE: No doubt, my lord.

KING RICHARD III: O Ratcliffe, I fear, I fear!

SIR RICHARD RATCLIFFE. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.

MacBeth: Lady MacBeth

LADY MACBETH: Yet here’s a spot.

LADY MACBETH: There’s still a spot here.

DOCTOR: Hark! She speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

DOCTOR: Listen! She’s talking. I’ll write down what she says, so I’ll remember it better.

LADY MACBETH: 25Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo. [JULIET appears above at a window] But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Juliet. Ay me!

Romeo. She speaks: O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him

Juliet. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet.