Refreshingly Honest Tact on Shakespeare

In Shakespeare is too obscure for the stage, methinks, The Telegraph writer Jemima Lewis takes a refreshingly honest tact on the reverent Bard:

“There’s nothing in the world less funny,” my father once told me, “than a Shakespearean joke.”

Is there any less convivial feeling than sitting in a theatre surrounded by people pretending to laugh at a Shakespearean gag?

The Emperor's New Clothes

Lewis is like the child in the Hans Christian Andersen tale - The Emperor's New Clothes.  The loyal subjects are absolutely mum about said new clothes, as the Emperor parades in front of them all in the buff.  Quite naturally, a child exclaims instead, But he isn't wearing anything at all!

In fact, I would go further than my father. I’d like to do away with Shakespeare altogether – at least on stage. It’s just too old. The language is so antiquated that, unless you’ve already studied the play at school, you spend the whole time trying to work out the meaning of one line without missing the next one. It’s like trying to pat your head while rubbing your tummy.

Lewis seems to dole out an indictment of Shakespeare, but I think that would be a misreading of her piece.  Rather, it's an acknowledgement of how difficult Shakespeare can be, or is, to a modern day audience.  I am so glad I studied a solid year of his plays at Northwestern University, and I am quite grateful to have had three different professors who lectured us clearly and persuasively, often animatedly and humorously.  I loved Shakespeare from the very first time I read him, and I enjoyed him even more from their classes and of course understood much better than I ever would have.

Actors and academics, who spend their lives chewing over Shakespeare’s every perchance and perforce, tend to forget how much they know. Dame Judi [Dench] says children should be encouraged to look beyond the text and think about the big themes: love, anger, jealousy and so on. “That’s what Shakespeare’s about, all those things. He says it better than anybody else.”

I’m sure he does. But you have to leap the hurdle of basic comprehension before you can get to the deeper meaning. The reason I am a Shakespeare philistine is that I was badly educated. I only ever studied – by which I mean line-by-line analysis with a beetle-browed teacher – one play: Macbeth. And actually, I loved it. Still do. I can even watch it on stage without undue suffering.

Perhaps Shakespeare does come alive on the stage. But first he must be exhumed in the classroom.

All the more crucial, if children are ever to grasp and enjoy Shakespeare, to study up on him and to enlist a knowledgeable, engaging teacher.  Adults might look into classes at a local college, seminars at the neighborhood library, or even discussions in an online community.  They don't necessarily have to be fully schooled on him, before they watch him on stage.  Instead, they can do whatever mix of reading and reciting, talking and watching, suits them best. 

In an age of short attention span, and short video clips, and clipped messages, Shakespeare is a call to pause, reflect, and learn.  I can say that it's so worth it.