The difference between reading and seeing Shakespeare, courtesy of 'King Lear'
Michael Winters (left) as Lear and Armando Duran as the loyal servant Kent in OSF's 'King Lear'
My earliest memory of William Shakespeare goes back to encountering Hamlet in high school, when I went out and bought my own copy for the occasion – a Folger Library General Readers Shakespeare pocket paperback edition, priced at $1.50. Though my Bard collection is now barely contained by three shelves, it’s that Folger Hamlet I’d grab if the house was on fire - along with my first copies of Moby Dick and The Odyssey, purchased from used book stores for those college prep classes, which opened my eyes to great literature. Let me add here an observation that I will expound upon another day: Shakespeare should be introduced to kids long before high school.
For some reason, the more vivid memory I have is of making (typing, to be precise) a list of all of Shakespeare’s plays, all thirty-eight. The list was an expression of the grandest of plans: to methodically read all the plays, thus making me an Extraordinarily Intelligent Person, a Renaissance Man in the ‘80s, when the bar was sufficiently low that even a B-grade actor could become President of the United States.
Shakespeare and I ran into each other a few more times, mostly in academic settings. Acting in The Comedy of Errors; watching Derek Jacobi square off with the ghost in the BBC production in the cramped office of my drama instructor; an outdoor production of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. I may have tried reading some of the plays, but it did not take long for my grand plan to be all but forgotten. For many long years, the Bard was also nearly forgotten, as work and life took over.
It wasn’t until the late 1990s that I renewed my relationship with William Shakespeare. As a reporter, I chronicled a high school production of that old standby, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I saw Julie Taymor’s Titus (in a theater, fortunately) which proved that Shakespeare on the silver screen actually can be not only good, but exhilarating. Also a wonderful documentary, little seen, Shakespeare’s Children, which illustrates that children are never too young to be introduced to the most gifted writer in the English language.
Most important of all, my wife and I began annual trips to Ashland where the Oregon Shakespeare Festival offers several of the Bard's plays (alongside contemporary productions) in multiple theaters all year long with an extraordinary company of actors and artists.
Seeing the plays performed by professional actors awakened the Bard Bug that prompted me to make that list so many years ago. Suddenly, I needed more. I started reading the plays before seeing them. Then I started reading about each play. Still, it wasn't enough.
Today, the scope and depth of my preparation for our annual sojourn to Ashland has reached, one might say, Shakespearean proportions: As soon as OSF announces the next season’s plays, I prepare an insanely ambitious study plan that (obviously) includes reading the play and much more. I bury myself in essays by Harold Bloom, Marjorie Garber, Isaac Asimov; the Arden Shakespeare’s lengthy introductions, which include fascinating notes about production history. If the play is available on film, I fire up the DVD player and watch as many as I can find. (I have not, however, been able to bring myself to sit through those BBC productions from the 1980s - mostly turgid affairs that seem horribly dated, something Shakespeare should never be.) Readings of the play typically involve several editions to take advantage of as many notes as possible, and the indispensable book by David and Ben Crystal, Shakespeare’s Words, is always at arm’s length. At some point, I got it into my head that I should memorize passages from the plays, so the walls of our house are now adorned with scraps of paper with words that I will later hear from actors playing Lear, Cymbeline, Henry etc. I am out of control. Although he is absurdly pompous, I find myself in agreement with Bloom when he maintains that there is only one appropriate stance toward Shakespeare, and that is one of awe. What cemented it for me was King Lear, which I have studied relentlessly since acting in it a few years ago. I played Edgar and had a lot of fun with it, although I am sure that if I were to see video of myself hopping around the stage as Poor Tom, I’d post a formal apology on the theater doors and then shoot myself.
Shakespeare at OSF has elicited a range of responses, so let me be clear: I love OSF, I love the actors and if I were a millionaire I’d make the largest possible donation so ticket prices could be reduced so more people could see these plays. The actors are terrific, but my wife and I have not always pleased with some of the production choices – a sure sign, I suppose, that we have become theater snobs. One production of Macbeth (with four actresses playing everyone except Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Banquo) was strange and unsatisfying; seeing The Comedy of Errors reimagined as an American Western left us cold, and even though I (sort of) enjoyed The Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa, I do not believe I am entitled to say that I’ve actually seen the play by William Shakespeare called The Merry Wives of Windsor.
More often than not, however, we love the productions and the artistic choices made by everyone involved. Productions of A Winter’s Tale, As You Like It, Love’s Labour’s Lost, King John, Richard III, Henry IV Parts I and II, Henry V, Hamlet, The Tempest and Measure for Measure have delighted, enthralled and moved us. I still remember Michael Elich in the title role of the rarely performed King John, and Danforth Comins in the ostensibly “minor” play Coriolanus shattered the ludicrous suggestion that any of Shakespeare’s plays are “minor.”
Which brings me back to King Lear, which we saw earlier this month, in the production starring Michael Winters (who shares the role with another actor, the enormously talented Jack Willis, in alternating performances – though it seems to me that given everything poor Glouscester goes through, a merciful director would also split that role between two sturdy souls.) It was very good, but ….
I have been trying for days to clarify in my own mind what’s going on with this particularly distressing “but.” King Lear is, in my view, Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. Hamlet may be the more interesting character, but Lear’s story unfolds in a more luminous play. Anticipating this year’s King Lear, I read Bloom’s essay in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. The professor from Yale opens with a remarkable statement: “I have attended many stagings of King Lear, and invariably have regretted being there,” he declares. Directors and actors, he believes, are “defeated” by the text. And finally: “I begin to sadly agree with (the critic) Charles Lamb that we ought to keep rereading King Lear and avoid its staged travesties.”
OSF’s King Lear is obviously not a “travesty.” It’s a handsomely mounted, well-acted, and at times thrilling production. Even though I know full well that Richard Elmore (as Gloucester) is not really having his eyeballs dug out of their sockets, this bloody set piece was as horrifying as any violence I’ve seen performed on a stage (or on screen, for that matter). The final battle between Edmund and Edgar is genuinely exciting; for one thrilling second or two, I actually found myself thinking that director Bill Rauch was going to mess with people and have Edmund win. The production design, sets and lighting are inspired. I particularly enjoyed the staging of the storm – which, as you know if you have seen the brilliant Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows, can defeat directors and actors, literally. Daisuke Tsuji as the Fool was a delight and a powerful reminder of why that character, easy to dismiss and at least as difficult to play as Edgar or even Lear himself, is so damned important.
There were a few problems. I’m not sure what to make of the actress playing Cordelia, who was fine but seemed curiously out of place. In hindsight, I suppose that was the point. The actor playing Edmund started too strong, leaving himself nowhere to go. At times, I also sensed a hesitancy, the sort one would associate with opening night jitters (even though they were in their third week and, being professionals, should not, in theory, have opening night jitters).
These, however, are minor quibbles. More importantly, they do not completely explain the “but” that has nagged me since walking out of the theater. But a few days ago, I stumbled across a blog written by a South American woman, a student and translator, named Melissa Vizcarra. She’s 26 years old, and she has a list and the grandest of plans: she is going to read all of William Shakespeare’s plays. I read the announcement of her plan, and I responded eagerly, via Twitter, to her call for advice. And it was then that a light bulb went off, and I realized what the “but” is all about.
It’s stupidly simple. Ultimately, what we have here is “The Book Was Better” problem, and anyone who reads books and then see the films based on the books knows exactly what I'm talking about. I don’t believe this is a problem that afflicts all plays, but Shakespeare, toward whom the only appropriate stance really is awe, occupies a unique place in our collective and individual imaginations. This is particularly true for those who have read the plays, and it’s even more true – indeed, it is especially true - for those who read the plays again and again, for those of us (and Bloom is clearly an extreme example) who immerse ourselves in them, permitting the text to wash over our consciousness like a tsunami. In my own case, I've gone one better than most: I’ve performed one of the roles. Years later, I still know Edgar’s lines. I’ve been inside the play, looking out, and let me tell you that if the play was written by Shakespeare, it's a fascinating place to be. I am not saying that our production (or my own acting) was better; it most certainly was not, although to this day, I remain most impressed with the sly performance by our Edmund, beautifully played by a good friend of mine, who ought to be working in Ashland himself.
When I found Vizcarra’s blog, I first advised her in the spirit of a Tweet by film critic Roger Ebert: “One of the tasks of a lifetime is to become familiar with the great plays of Shakespeare.” One does not simply read the plays and consider the business done. For that matter, you hardly have “finished” anything once seeing them all; you have only begun. It is, ultimately, the project of a lifetime.
But my latest reading and viewing of King Lear, which I know better than any Shakespeare play, imparted another truth to me, and it is this: The vital task of reading Shakespeare makes it easier to appreciate the plays in performance, yes, but at the same time, it can also diminish them, even if the quality of the production is excellent.
This is, I know, intensely contradictory. The plays were written to be performed, yes, but now that we have them in our heads, the power of our imagination looms large. As Marjorie Garber has written, the play Hamlet has become so ingrained in our culture that it has become impossible, in a weird sort of way, for one to see it “for the first time.” After all, is there anyone you might encounter on the street who could not tell you who wrote or utters those immortal words that begin with “To be, or not to be ….”?
So I will continue to read Shakespeare, to study the plays, and to see the plays. My project is not done - and, of course, it will never really be done until my heart beats for the final time - but from a strictly technical point of view, it is about two thirds done. To read and/or see for the first time, I still look forward to: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3, Titus Andronicus, Richard II, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. But from this point, I proceed with a deeper knowledge of the strange and contradictory relationship between reading Shakespeare and seeing his extraordinary work performed on stage. And I wish my fellow reader in South America the best of luck.
This essay originally appeared on my Reading Everest blog on March 8, 2013.
For some reason, the more vivid memory I have is of making (typing, to be precise) a list of all of Shakespeare’s plays, all thirty-eight. The list was an expression of the grandest of plans: to methodically read all the plays, thus making me an Extraordinarily Intelligent Person, a Renaissance Man in the ‘80s, when the bar was sufficiently low that even a B-grade actor could become President of the United States.
Shakespeare and I ran into each other a few more times, mostly in academic settings. Acting in The Comedy of Errors; watching Derek Jacobi square off with the ghost in the BBC production in the cramped office of my drama instructor; an outdoor production of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. I may have tried reading some of the plays, but it did not take long for my grand plan to be all but forgotten. For many long years, the Bard was also nearly forgotten, as work and life took over.
It wasn’t until the late 1990s that I renewed my relationship with William Shakespeare. As a reporter, I chronicled a high school production of that old standby, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I saw Julie Taymor’s Titus (in a theater, fortunately) which proved that Shakespeare on the silver screen actually can be not only good, but exhilarating. Also a wonderful documentary, little seen, Shakespeare’s Children, which illustrates that children are never too young to be introduced to the most gifted writer in the English language.
Most important of all, my wife and I began annual trips to Ashland where the Oregon Shakespeare Festival offers several of the Bard's plays (alongside contemporary productions) in multiple theaters all year long with an extraordinary company of actors and artists.
Seeing the plays performed by professional actors awakened the Bard Bug that prompted me to make that list so many years ago. Suddenly, I needed more. I started reading the plays before seeing them. Then I started reading about each play. Still, it wasn't enough.
Today, the scope and depth of my preparation for our annual sojourn to Ashland has reached, one might say, Shakespearean proportions: As soon as OSF announces the next season’s plays, I prepare an insanely ambitious study plan that (obviously) includes reading the play and much more. I bury myself in essays by Harold Bloom, Marjorie Garber, Isaac Asimov; the Arden Shakespeare’s lengthy introductions, which include fascinating notes about production history. If the play is available on film, I fire up the DVD player and watch as many as I can find. (I have not, however, been able to bring myself to sit through those BBC productions from the 1980s - mostly turgid affairs that seem horribly dated, something Shakespeare should never be.) Readings of the play typically involve several editions to take advantage of as many notes as possible, and the indispensable book by David and Ben Crystal, Shakespeare’s Words, is always at arm’s length. At some point, I got it into my head that I should memorize passages from the plays, so the walls of our house are now adorned with scraps of paper with words that I will later hear from actors playing Lear, Cymbeline, Henry etc. I am out of control. Although he is absurdly pompous, I find myself in agreement with Bloom when he maintains that there is only one appropriate stance toward Shakespeare, and that is one of awe. What cemented it for me was King Lear, which I have studied relentlessly since acting in it a few years ago. I played Edgar and had a lot of fun with it, although I am sure that if I were to see video of myself hopping around the stage as Poor Tom, I’d post a formal apology on the theater doors and then shoot myself.
Shakespeare at OSF has elicited a range of responses, so let me be clear: I love OSF, I love the actors and if I were a millionaire I’d make the largest possible donation so ticket prices could be reduced so more people could see these plays. The actors are terrific, but my wife and I have not always pleased with some of the production choices – a sure sign, I suppose, that we have become theater snobs. One production of Macbeth (with four actresses playing everyone except Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Banquo) was strange and unsatisfying; seeing The Comedy of Errors reimagined as an American Western left us cold, and even though I (sort of) enjoyed The Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa, I do not believe I am entitled to say that I’ve actually seen the play by William Shakespeare called The Merry Wives of Windsor.
More often than not, however, we love the productions and the artistic choices made by everyone involved. Productions of A Winter’s Tale, As You Like It, Love’s Labour’s Lost, King John, Richard III, Henry IV Parts I and II, Henry V, Hamlet, The Tempest and Measure for Measure have delighted, enthralled and moved us. I still remember Michael Elich in the title role of the rarely performed King John, and Danforth Comins in the ostensibly “minor” play Coriolanus shattered the ludicrous suggestion that any of Shakespeare’s plays are “minor.”
Which brings me back to King Lear, which we saw earlier this month, in the production starring Michael Winters (who shares the role with another actor, the enormously talented Jack Willis, in alternating performances – though it seems to me that given everything poor Glouscester goes through, a merciful director would also split that role between two sturdy souls.) It was very good, but ….
I have been trying for days to clarify in my own mind what’s going on with this particularly distressing “but.” King Lear is, in my view, Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. Hamlet may be the more interesting character, but Lear’s story unfolds in a more luminous play. Anticipating this year’s King Lear, I read Bloom’s essay in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. The professor from Yale opens with a remarkable statement: “I have attended many stagings of King Lear, and invariably have regretted being there,” he declares. Directors and actors, he believes, are “defeated” by the text. And finally: “I begin to sadly agree with (the critic) Charles Lamb that we ought to keep rereading King Lear and avoid its staged travesties.”
OSF’s King Lear is obviously not a “travesty.” It’s a handsomely mounted, well-acted, and at times thrilling production. Even though I know full well that Richard Elmore (as Gloucester) is not really having his eyeballs dug out of their sockets, this bloody set piece was as horrifying as any violence I’ve seen performed on a stage (or on screen, for that matter). The final battle between Edmund and Edgar is genuinely exciting; for one thrilling second or two, I actually found myself thinking that director Bill Rauch was going to mess with people and have Edmund win. The production design, sets and lighting are inspired. I particularly enjoyed the staging of the storm – which, as you know if you have seen the brilliant Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows, can defeat directors and actors, literally. Daisuke Tsuji as the Fool was a delight and a powerful reminder of why that character, easy to dismiss and at least as difficult to play as Edgar or even Lear himself, is so damned important.
There were a few problems. I’m not sure what to make of the actress playing Cordelia, who was fine but seemed curiously out of place. In hindsight, I suppose that was the point. The actor playing Edmund started too strong, leaving himself nowhere to go. At times, I also sensed a hesitancy, the sort one would associate with opening night jitters (even though they were in their third week and, being professionals, should not, in theory, have opening night jitters).
These, however, are minor quibbles. More importantly, they do not completely explain the “but” that has nagged me since walking out of the theater. But a few days ago, I stumbled across a blog written by a South American woman, a student and translator, named Melissa Vizcarra. She’s 26 years old, and she has a list and the grandest of plans: she is going to read all of William Shakespeare’s plays. I read the announcement of her plan, and I responded eagerly, via Twitter, to her call for advice. And it was then that a light bulb went off, and I realized what the “but” is all about.
It’s stupidly simple. Ultimately, what we have here is “The Book Was Better” problem, and anyone who reads books and then see the films based on the books knows exactly what I'm talking about. I don’t believe this is a problem that afflicts all plays, but Shakespeare, toward whom the only appropriate stance really is awe, occupies a unique place in our collective and individual imaginations. This is particularly true for those who have read the plays, and it’s even more true – indeed, it is especially true - for those who read the plays again and again, for those of us (and Bloom is clearly an extreme example) who immerse ourselves in them, permitting the text to wash over our consciousness like a tsunami. In my own case, I've gone one better than most: I’ve performed one of the roles. Years later, I still know Edgar’s lines. I’ve been inside the play, looking out, and let me tell you that if the play was written by Shakespeare, it's a fascinating place to be. I am not saying that our production (or my own acting) was better; it most certainly was not, although to this day, I remain most impressed with the sly performance by our Edmund, beautifully played by a good friend of mine, who ought to be working in Ashland himself.
When I found Vizcarra’s blog, I first advised her in the spirit of a Tweet by film critic Roger Ebert: “One of the tasks of a lifetime is to become familiar with the great plays of Shakespeare.” One does not simply read the plays and consider the business done. For that matter, you hardly have “finished” anything once seeing them all; you have only begun. It is, ultimately, the project of a lifetime.
But my latest reading and viewing of King Lear, which I know better than any Shakespeare play, imparted another truth to me, and it is this: The vital task of reading Shakespeare makes it easier to appreciate the plays in performance, yes, but at the same time, it can also diminish them, even if the quality of the production is excellent.
This is, I know, intensely contradictory. The plays were written to be performed, yes, but now that we have them in our heads, the power of our imagination looms large. As Marjorie Garber has written, the play Hamlet has become so ingrained in our culture that it has become impossible, in a weird sort of way, for one to see it “for the first time.” After all, is there anyone you might encounter on the street who could not tell you who wrote or utters those immortal words that begin with “To be, or not to be ….”?
So I will continue to read Shakespeare, to study the plays, and to see the plays. My project is not done - and, of course, it will never really be done until my heart beats for the final time - but from a strictly technical point of view, it is about two thirds done. To read and/or see for the first time, I still look forward to: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3, Titus Andronicus, Richard II, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. But from this point, I proceed with a deeper knowledge of the strange and contradictory relationship between reading Shakespeare and seeing his extraordinary work performed on stage. And I wish my fellow reader in South America the best of luck.
This essay originally appeared on my Reading Everest blog on March 8, 2013.
