This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education called “Hamlet.doc?” starts out with a nice discussion of the multiple Lears and Hamlets problem.  No scripts exist in his hand.  We don’t know when something is his own idea, or a memorial reconstruction from his actors.  Sometimes it’s just a plain mistake, and we might think it’s perfection. Then the article goes on to say “but what if Shakespeare was using a word processor?”  He could have made backups.  He might have had version control.  Tracked changes.  “We might have learned that the play was originally called Great Dane.” 🙂 The article uses a term I quite like, “born-digital.”  Literature, in other words, that has only ever existed in digital form.  We in the software world like to say, “As soon as you print it, it’s out of date.”

Last week on vacation I reported purchasing a “Shakespeare action figure”.  Without even opening it, this has fascinated my children.  “Mommy bought Daddy a toy?  Are you excited, Daddy?  When do you think Mommy will let you play with it?” and so on.  Suddenly it’s like I’m one of them.   The best part, though, came the day we got home.  While unpacking, Mr. Shakespeare was left sitting on the kitchen table, and was still there while we had lunch.  That’s when the real questions came.  “Yes, but Daddy, who was Shakespeare?” my 5yr old asked.  “What did he do?” “Well he wrote stories,” I said. “What kind of stories?  Were there any girls in the stories?”  My two oldest are girls, you see. “Oh sure, he wrote stories about girls all the time.  There’s that one about the girl named Miranda on the island that I’ve told you about, Shakespeare wrote that one.”  Speaking of The Tempest, by the way. “The girl on the island is a princess!” my 3yr old pipes up. “As a matter of fact she is a princess,” I confirm.  “But she doesn’t know it yet.  A long time ago she was forced to leave her kingdom with her father, who was a very powerful magician named Prospero, when the bad guys came and took over the kingdom.  Miranda and her father escaped on a boat and ended up on the island.” “A boat?  Are there pirates in this story?” “You know, there are pirates in this story, I’m glad you asked.  Two pirates named Stephano and Trinculo were washed up onto the island when their ship crashed.  There they met the seamonster named Caliban, and together they tried to take over the whole island!” …and so on.  This went on, off and on, all day.  Over dinner my 5yr old asks, “Was Caliban nice to Miranda and her Daddy?” and from down the hall in the bathroom I hear my 3yr old yell, “Are you talking about Shakespeare?” I turned to my wife and said, “You realize I’m in absolute bliss right now, right?” By the way, I’m not supposed to get the toy (which has disappeared from the kitchen table) until Christmas.  But after seeing results like that I might buy them their own!  There was another series of smaller, almost “Little People”-esque figures called “Lord Crumwell’s Oddfellows Genius Collection” that might be worth investing in, especially if I can come home one day and find my 3yr old playing with Shakespeare and Beethoven alongside her Barbies.

I’m on vacation this week, down Cape Cod.  And as we’re trolling the center of town we (my wife, mother in law, myself, and 3 kids in tow) wander into one of those shops that’s loaded with street signs, movie posters, lunch boxes and all sorts of other random kitschy goofy stuff that, well, no one in their right mind would buy. And then I saw the Shakespeare bobblehead. I took him reverently down from his shelf and walked over to my wife like I was 7years old again about to ask for a new bike.  She told me it was silly. I told her of course it was silly, that’s the point.  My mother in law told her to get it for me.  While they debated, I put it back and kept looking.  Then I saw a collection of what looked like Fisher Price Little People, only they were all classic geniuses – Picasso, Freud, Beethoven, Einstein, and Shakespeare.  My 3yr old is at a phase where she’s a total packrat, always carrying a little toy in her hands.  The thought of her carrying a teeny Shakespeare around the house just thrilled me to no end.  But alas, I showed it to her hoping I could come up with an excuse to buy it for her, you see, but she just said, “Where are the princesses?” so I decided not to blow the $20.  At last I saw the action figure.  I knew it existed, I’d seen it in the Archie McPhee catalog.  Not quite as goofy as a Shakespeare bobblehead, but still fun, and half the price.  Apparently I’m getting him for Christmas. 🙂

http://redshoesonathuuursday.blogspot.com/2007/08/shakespeare-rules-instilled-in-dench-by.html I’m guessing that “The Dench” refers to Dame Judi Dench.  I’m no actor, but I found the rules interesting.  I think we often assume that the greatest actors we see have some sort of natural instinct for it and everything just happens.  It’s nice to be reminded that they have to work at it as well.  The greatest actors still take direction.