Actor Connor Keene performs Shakespeare's Sonnet 12 about the nature of time and decay. Like many other sonnets, Shakespeare wrestles with the humiliation that age makes of all things beautiful, eventually reaching the conclusion that only through having children can one preserve themself against time. Connor Keene is a regular actor with the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. Our thanks goes out to The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles for letting us use their facilities to film this sonnet.

"When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence."

Produced by Blank Verse Films
Directed by Mike Gioia
Cinematography by Nate Brice
Sound by Jordan Potter

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