Week 27: More Shakespeare!

I’m trying. I’m trying. Shakespeare isn’t kicking me; my traveling is.

First up, two tips if you are going to read Shakespeare: first, watch the movie! It’s not cheating. Second, read several plays. They get easier the more you read: your ear gets accustomed to the sound and the wordplay.

This week the plays were Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Tempest. To be perfectly honest, dear reader, I have left my notes on my desk which is 300 miles away. But I desperately want to get this post share with you, so I will try to remember what I’d like to tell you.

I watched the Franco Zeffereli version of Romeo and Juliet. It’s just a lovely version, and it’s likely that you sat in 8th or 9th grade English and watched it, your English teacher FFW-ing the “naked” parts. I loved it, but when I read it I realized that it’s not entirely true to Shakespeare! This is why you should read the play.

Last week the plays were all tragedies, and Romeo is as well. But there isn’t really a villain in Romeo and Juliet (Thibault doesn’t count), and I honestly think that is what it makes it such an interesting story. No one is bad—they are just acting according to the expectations placed on them. That works until it doesn’t, until Juliet decides that she loves someone other than the man her father has picked for her. Paris isn’t a bad guy—he’s simply not who Juliet wanted. Romeo is impetuous; when the play opens he is in love with another girl, but by Act 2 he is devoted to Juliet. And the sensible adults in their lives, namely the nurse and Friar Lawrence, fail them as well. It’s a story about the failure of a system.

I think that the nuance of this is just lost on 9th graders. This is one of the two Shakespeare plays that I had read (9th grade, natch) and it simply wasn’t what I expected it to be. Yes, there are star-crossed lovers, but there is an entire society that failed them, and one that is tried and found guilty by the end of the play. The nurse is one in particular that I was annoyed with, but is she just a victim of her position? Could she alone have talked sense into Juliet?

Most of all, I think we as a society have boiled both Romeo and Juliet into dummies, teenage lovers governed by emotion. Maybe, but that ignores everyone around them who could have helped them. I think that if you have teenagers in your life this play bears a re-read, or a first read.

Moving on to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we come to the first play in Ted’s list that is a comedy. I watched this version, from the BBC in in the 60s. Y’all. Dame Judi Dench and Helen Mirren are in this one. They are so young and simply lovely, and Dench is already powerful as she inhabits the role of Titania the Faerie Queen.

I was utterly unfamiliar with this story. There truly are laugh-out-loud moments, but after all the drama in the earlier four plays I honestly didn’t have much patience for a comedy. I could tell that everything would work out. I was tired and didn’t really want to read it. However, if I had the opportunity to see MND performed live I would jump at it. It’s obviously hilarious in parts.

Finally, we come to The Tempest. There was no movie, but this proved my idea that if you read enough Shakespeare, eventually your ear gets tuned to it. Reading becomes pretty straightforward.

I absolutely loved this story. The Tempest is comedy, high drama, adventure tale, and morality play all rolled into one. Ted likes to recommend this for its application to technology today. I’m not sure I get that, but I’ll take a stab at it. Prospero (the main character, the former duke and current magician) got consumed by his use of magic/technology to the point that he lost control of the things he should be in charge of. His opportunist brother seizes control of the kingdom and the dukedom. Prospero retreats and develops his magic for a few years, finally coming out of retirement because the kingdom isn’t prospering. He realizes that his best use of the things he knows is to take care of his kingdom.

I think the parallel might be that people who are good at leadership should realize that the magic/technology is somewhat of a distraction when they are trying to lead.

Anyway, I thought this was incredibly entertaining, with a great story and yet tons of good soliloquies and one-liners. I don’t know if I loved this one best because I had read five plays before it, but it’s well worth reading.

In the interest of getting this published, I’m going to skip the music and art. And I’m pulling an audible: next week I’ll finish with Shakespeare, trading weeks 28 and 29 on Ted’s list. My travel schedule makes this easier. So we will read Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, along with Othello. Everything is linked here!