Rachael Eyre's Blog - Posts Tagged "shakespeare"
Mad About the Bard
Last week saw the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, also his 52nd birthday (that must've put a dampener on proceedings). It highlighted the complex, contradictory relationship Brits have with the man from Stratford. The rest of the time we pretend his plays are outdated curios, enjoyed only by academics and luvvies - or (the real reason for people's dislike) the subject of impossible exam questions. But come the anniversary of his birth, we let our hair down and reflect on what has made him so durable, iconic and eminently quotable.
I bloody love Shakespeare. And I can tell you precisely how it began: getting my grubby mitts on a copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream aged ten. I can't say I understood all of it, but I loved the poetry and the situations. The fairies' custody dispute! The lovers' switcheroo! The mechanicals putting on their shambles of a play! (Shakespeare has always made me break out in exclamation marks).
This love didn't pall even once it was shoved under the microscope. I relished the gender bending of Twelfth Night, although I found the gulling of Malvolio barbarous. Romeo and Juliet was gorgeously written and accessible to teens, though a little emo for my taste. (I never forgave Romeo for killing Paris - a detail that's excised from most adaptations). I will always feel wretched about The Merchant of Venice, whatever modern, sensitive spin they choose to put on it. Defend the Bard all you like, but it was a blatant attempt to cash in after the success of anti Semitic plays like Marlowe's The Jew of Malta.
Which brings us to his other race relations play set in Venice, Othello. This is, to my mind, the pinnacle of Shakespeare's achievement. While past critics have denounced it as sordid, and hardly the stuff of tragedy, it's this smaller, more domestic sphere that makes it so good. Who hasn't doubted their partner's fidelity or placed their trust in the wrong person? And is there any fictional character more disturbing than Iago, a man so petty and evil he destroys lives on a series of pretexts? His plot is finally exposed by Emilia, his long-suffering wife. Brave, intelligent and a feminist centuries before the word was coined, she is the true heroine of this play.
Bearing in mind that Shakespeare's heroines would have been played by boy actors, they're a compelling, diverse bunch - arguably superior to many penned by male authors today. Think of Lady Macbeth, the original woman behind the man, or Cleopatra, who's much more than a queenly cougar. The "breeches" plot may have been done to death, but it allows various heroines to bond with their lovers in ways that would have been unthinkable otherwise.
True, his record isn't spotless. It's difficult to know what to make of The Taming of the Shrew, an early work that reads like straightforward domestic abuse to a twenty first century audience. And of course there's Titus Andronicus, a play so violent and depraved historians used to deny he had anything to do with it. Though even this schlocky horror show of rape, mutilation and cannibalism contains this gem:
Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Zing!
The secret to Shakespeare's longevity - and why he stands up to repeat viewings and readings - is how open to interpretation he is. Is Hamlet genuinely mad or faking? Did Lear abuse his daughters? Is Prospero a benevolent magician or a despotic colonialist? Is Falstaff popping up in what's effectively a romcom (The Merry Wives of Windsor) a cheesy excuse to reuse a popular character or a stroke of meta genius? Can the Roman plays serve as commentary on contemporary politics?
Ignore the trendy teachers who say he's irrelevant, or the lunatic fringe who claim a glovemaker's son couldn't possibly write such wonderful plays. The jobbing actor, bisexual sonneteer and eventual gentleman was one of a kind. The canon would be far poorer without him.
I bloody love Shakespeare. And I can tell you precisely how it began: getting my grubby mitts on a copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream aged ten. I can't say I understood all of it, but I loved the poetry and the situations. The fairies' custody dispute! The lovers' switcheroo! The mechanicals putting on their shambles of a play! (Shakespeare has always made me break out in exclamation marks).
This love didn't pall even once it was shoved under the microscope. I relished the gender bending of Twelfth Night, although I found the gulling of Malvolio barbarous. Romeo and Juliet was gorgeously written and accessible to teens, though a little emo for my taste. (I never forgave Romeo for killing Paris - a detail that's excised from most adaptations). I will always feel wretched about The Merchant of Venice, whatever modern, sensitive spin they choose to put on it. Defend the Bard all you like, but it was a blatant attempt to cash in after the success of anti Semitic plays like Marlowe's The Jew of Malta.
Which brings us to his other race relations play set in Venice, Othello. This is, to my mind, the pinnacle of Shakespeare's achievement. While past critics have denounced it as sordid, and hardly the stuff of tragedy, it's this smaller, more domestic sphere that makes it so good. Who hasn't doubted their partner's fidelity or placed their trust in the wrong person? And is there any fictional character more disturbing than Iago, a man so petty and evil he destroys lives on a series of pretexts? His plot is finally exposed by Emilia, his long-suffering wife. Brave, intelligent and a feminist centuries before the word was coined, she is the true heroine of this play.
Bearing in mind that Shakespeare's heroines would have been played by boy actors, they're a compelling, diverse bunch - arguably superior to many penned by male authors today. Think of Lady Macbeth, the original woman behind the man, or Cleopatra, who's much more than a queenly cougar. The "breeches" plot may have been done to death, but it allows various heroines to bond with their lovers in ways that would have been unthinkable otherwise.
True, his record isn't spotless. It's difficult to know what to make of The Taming of the Shrew, an early work that reads like straightforward domestic abuse to a twenty first century audience. And of course there's Titus Andronicus, a play so violent and depraved historians used to deny he had anything to do with it. Though even this schlocky horror show of rape, mutilation and cannibalism contains this gem:
Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Zing!
The secret to Shakespeare's longevity - and why he stands up to repeat viewings and readings - is how open to interpretation he is. Is Hamlet genuinely mad or faking? Did Lear abuse his daughters? Is Prospero a benevolent magician or a despotic colonialist? Is Falstaff popping up in what's effectively a romcom (The Merry Wives of Windsor) a cheesy excuse to reuse a popular character or a stroke of meta genius? Can the Roman plays serve as commentary on contemporary politics?
Ignore the trendy teachers who say he's irrelevant, or the lunatic fringe who claim a glovemaker's son couldn't possibly write such wonderful plays. The jobbing actor, bisexual sonneteer and eventual gentleman was one of a kind. The canon would be far poorer without him.
