Shakespeare Week

I can’t remember what the first Shakespeare play I studied was, but I think it might have been The Tempest. I hated it. Bear with me on this. For me, being taught Shakespeare has never been a pleasant experience. Sitting poring over the script, deciphering the language and being questioned on meaning is quintessential Shakespeare study. It’s pretty much standard for studying any text, and it’s so. Dry. For far too long I hated Shakespeare because my only encounter with it was on the page, or being read aloud by classmates. (There was also an unfortunate claymation film, and a travelling theatre group who visited our school and were desperately and embarrassingly parodying for their lives).

Then we went to the theatre. It was a production of Hamlet, and it was both good and understandable. Meaning is conveyed so much more easily as the actors embody the characters and speak the words, and suddenly jokes appear, and the plot sails along. That’s not to say that all Shakespeare is good- my University once subsidised a trip to see an am/dram version of Macbeth that was so bad that 3/4’s of the group snuck out to go to the pub across the road during the interval, including one of the lecturers- but Shakespeare plays are meant to be watched. I’ve seen a fair amount of the bard’s plays by now, enough to know that Much Ado About Nothing is my favourite, and that going to see something at the Globe is never a bad decision (even in the rain). I know my favourite kinds of adaption are the ones which use the text as is but transport the setting to modern day, and ascribe meanings to parts you had thought irrelevant before. Theatre truly transforms.

There’s no message to this post, no preach, no point, just an expression of love for this piece of theatre history.