General Editor's Introduction

Mamillius is surely right that a sad tale's best for winter. As this issue goes to press and 2018 draws to a close, our thoughts here at Shakespeare Bulletin turn to our community's losses this year. Barbara Hodgdon, a longtime, generous member of our editorial board, and Andrew Bretz, an enthusiastic contributor, are already missed and will not be forgotten.

Alongside a taste for sad tales, winter brings an appetite for heartier fare. After several issues packed with many articles of an entirely reasonable length, this issue offers a smaller number of long reads to be savored. Kevin Quarmby's "OP PC or PAR RIP?," an analysis of the first productions under Michelle Terry's artistic directorship of the Globe, is essential reading, offering insights into the losses and gains represented by her vision and providing a rich context for some of the reviews in this issue. Jessica Chiba's "Lost and Found in Translation: Hybridity in Kurosawa's Ran" repositions the film we thought we knew by offering a close analysis of the Japanese dialogue rather than the English subtitles that have led some earlier interpreters astray. Generously, Chiba has included her translations as an appendix that will be invaluable to future scholars. Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich's "Queering Poins: Masculinity and Friendship in Henry IV, The Hollow Crown, and the RSC's 'King and Country'" is a close reading of this minor character's outsized contribution to a more complex and multi-faceted construction of masculinity than the traditional focus on Hal and Falstaff has allowed, both in Shakespeare's text and in two recent productions. Finally, Matt Vadnais, in "The Distribution and Ordering of Speeches and Shakespearean Revision," sets the cat among the pigeons by calling into question some longstanding assumptions about a variant text's "playability." There will be plenty for readers to mull over, as befits a winter issue.

As the northern hemisphere settles in for the snowy season, Shakespeare Bulletin is heading Down Under. By the time you read this we will be based at the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Western Australia. If I have waxed a little nostalgic about winter, well, saying goodbye to cherished colleagues at the University of Ottawa and packing up my family's parkas has put me in a reflective mood. The next issue will be produced under the Perth sunshine, with a view of imperious peacocks, majestic gum trees, and the New Fortune Theatre, a partial reconstruction of the Fortune Playhouse. Please note our new mailing address, and let me know if you plan to be in the vicinity.