Month: May 2013

Someone asked on Reddit, “What’s the best way to start with Shakespeare?“

As expected there’s a bunch of “Don’t try to read him, instead go see a good version of the play” suggestions.  But the particular one upset me in its absolute stance on how bad reading is for you. Quoted briefly, but you should go read the whole thing at the link:

Put down your written copies of the plays. Now. You don’t have to read Shakespeare to love him. Unless you are in a play, or a serious student/scholar, you are not helping yourself or him by attempting to get satisfaction from the words on paper.

I have a big problem with this.  Rather than write it all down again I’ll quote my response.  I’m moving the discussion here because I know my audience better :).

While I appreciate the passion, I agree vehemently with your absolutism on the subject. 

Here’s the problem. Shakespeare’s dead. You will never, not in the next million years, ever see, nor should you want to see, Shakespeare’s plays as he intended them. 400 years have gone by, after all, and you won’t even begin to comprehend the state of mind that his audience was in when they saw them. You will be unable to set your knowledge aside and look at them with the same eyes and listen with the same ears. 

What you get, when you see Shakespeare’s plays today, is the specific interpretation of that director and those actors at that time. Which has nothing at all to do with what Shakespeare intended, other than what they can extract from the text, which is still nothing but interpretation. Again, the man’s dead. We need to stop pretending that we can know for certain what the “right” way to do it is. 

So why then is a certain interpretation of Shakespeare ever better than another? It’s not a question of better it’s a question of different and intriguing. You don’t want to see one, say “Ok, I’ve seen it”, and then check it off your bucket list. You want to see as many Hamlets as you can and then ponder why David Tennant played it a certain way that Kevin Kline did not. Or why Patrick Stewart as Claudius shrugs before drinking the poison. (Why oh why does he shrug?!) 

So, then, what you really want to do is see as many interpretations as you can. What do all those interpretations have in common? THE TEXT. 

How will you ever fully appreciate the Shakespeare that you are watching, unless you know the source material? Or at least the source material as close as we are able to reproduce it? 

Think of it like this. When you go see a play what you’re really saying is “Shakespeare gave this group of people a big block of marble, and what they did is they chipped away everything that, to them, didn’t look like Hamlet.” Wouldn’t you like to see the raw material that Shakespeare started with, and decide for yourself what parts you’d like to chip away? 

I could give a dozen examples. What if you saw 4 productions of Hamlet, all of which cut out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the way Olivier did? You’d be none the wiser. Then you go and see a fifth version and here come these two guys and you’re all “WTF is the director doing adding these two bozos?!”

See/hear the plays in as wide and frequent a variety as you can find, absolutely. You will learn and understand them by seeing them. I don’t deny that. But to truly internalize them and get rid of all the middle men between you and Shakespeare? Absolutely read them.

Discussion?

The Shakespeare Geek blog has been around since 2005, making it the oldest continually active Shakespeare blog today. Shakespeare is Universal represents our biggest fund-raising effort to date. For almost eight years and almost three thousand posts I’ve tried my best to make a place where everyone can talk about everything related to the subject of Shakespeare. If you’ve found my sites and products useful and interesting, I would greatly appreciate your support so that I can continue to do even more. Thank you.

You know what? It’s a one-joke gimmick but it’s funny to me.

If Shakespeare Lived In Boston…

O, most wicked awesome speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

Hamlet, apparently more approving of his mother’s o’erhasty marriage than he’s letting on? Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 2)

But then you’ll think–Which I protest against–
I am assisted by wicked awesome powers.

The Shakespeare Geek blog has been around since 2005, making it the web’s oldest continually active Shakespeare blog. Shakespeare is Universal represents our biggest fund-raising effort to date. For almost eight years and almost three thousand posts I’ve tried my best to make a place where everyone can talk about everything related to the subject of Shakespeare. If you’ve found my sites and products useful and interesting, I would greatly appreciate your support so that I can continue to do even more. Thank you.

Bardfilm, without coercion, has developed this list to convince the reluctant to purchase the “Shakespeare is Universal” T-shirt designed by Shakespeare Geek.

10. Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as Edgar (disguised as Poor Tom) is in King Lear. This T-shirt will enable you to rise above such unaccommodation.

9. Only one week remains to sign up for this shirt—and I have inside knowledge that the opportunity will not repeat itself if this fails.

8. The night is cold, and you are sick at heart. Purchasing this T-shirt will remedy both difficulties simultaneously!

7. A shirt of such quality is rarely seen—far less is it seen for the low price of a mere fifteen dollars. It’s practically custom-designed for the Shakespeare afficianado in each of us. Given that our Geek has taken suggestions from followers and Facebook fans and updated the design, it actually is custom-designed, now that I think about it.

6. Falstaff, according to the Hostess, “could never abide carnation; ’twas a colour he never liked.” This shirt is not offered in carnation—though you can get it in black, blue, red, or grey.

5. You love to talk about Shakespeare—you know you do. Wear this T-shirt, and conversations will automatically turn in a direction you know and love!

4. Shakespeare Geek has been a constant Shakespeare promoter to all and sundry since 2005. This is but one very small way to congratulate him on his efforts and to encourage him to continue in them.

3. Lear tells us that “Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear.” Hide your small vices by buying this untatter’d t-shirt!

2. Imagine the prestige of being one of only a hundred people in the world to own this t-shirt. Pretend you’ve joined an ultra-secret society of Shakespeare promoters. When you spot another person wearing this shirt, nod gravely. That would be so cool!

1. The whips and scorns of time will have little to no effect on you when you wear a shirt covered with “To be or not to be” in thirty-six languages.  That, my friends, is the same number as the number of plays included in the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works.

Finally, if you don’t buy this shirt, Bardfilm (and ninety-nine other people) won’t ever get the opportunity to have one. And “Keep Bardfilm happy” is such a common expression that it’s virtually become a cliché.  And you know what they say—it wouldn’t be a cliché if it weren’t true!

Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.

“Everything I do is in some way linked back to Shakespeare,” says Ben Kingsley, he of the Royal Shakespeare Company who also happens to be the most recent Iron Man villain, Mandarin.

I love his loyalty.  If you think he’s kidding, check out this 2010 interview when he played the villain in the videogame movie “Prince of Persia”:

I serve Nizam as if Nizam was written by Shakespeare and he was called Richard III. “Why waste my time trivializing a character or a film?” he continued, now fully engaged, his voice smooth and mellifluous. “If I trivialize it, it’s going to spoil three, four, five months of my life. Instead, I consciously think to myself, ‘Aim high, aim very high with Nizam. If the kids are going to come and watch it, let them see Richard IIIfrom Shakespeare. That will make them go, ‘Wow.’ Don’t give them a Punch and Judy show villain.

I don’t know what Mr. Kingsley’s final resting plans may be but I think that he should seriously consider having, “If the kids are going to come and watch it, let them see Shakespeare.  That will make them go, ‘Wow’” inscribed on his tombstone. While it might be true that the man seems to take any job where the check clears, we can look at it more positively when we think that he’s bringing Shakespeare into everything he does.

The Shakespeare Geek blog has been around since 2005, making it the oldest continually active Shakespeare blog in existence. Shakespeare is Universal represents our biggest fund-raising effort to date. For almost eight years and almost three thousand posts I’ve tried my best to make a place where everyone can talk about everything related to the subject of Shakespeare. If you’ve found my sites and products useful and interesting, I would greatly appreciate your support so that I can continue to do even more. Thank you.