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Re: "Shakespeare is magic "

As I wrote before, Stephen Greenblatt's "Will in the World" is a good overview of thought on Shakespeare today. It shows how he was influenced by the events around him and used them or avoided them in his works in such ways that everyone...a king, a small business owner, a teenager in school...could see themselves in various works. It also shows how he works some interesting undercurrents of his personal life into various plays (the part discussing marital relations and "Macbeth" justified the book's price for me!).

I love how Shakespeare incorporates the everyday ceremonies of life in his works. Weddings, funerals, dances (and until this century, duels!). Indeed, the book's central theme is that Shakespeare's work is the "Triumph of the Everyday." Deep thoughts can be presented in the most ordinary of ways.

Years ago, an instructor of mine said that playing Shakespeare is easy: "You just hop on the train and let him do all the work." That is the most astonishing thing about Shakespeare: the variety of ways that one can play what he has given us. I love Eugene O'Neill, especially the very early and very late works. But when I see "Long Day's Journey into Night", I'm going to see basically the same play I saw last time. I may see "Measure for Measure", and I'll hear the same words, but the acting choices can be very different! At the end of the play, when Claudio tells Isabella he is marrying her, she says nothing. In fact, there are 150 more lines, and this outspoken defender of chastity doesn't utter even a word. I have seen actresses glow with joy and pride, and I have seen actresses fume and stomp about, and I have seen actresses just stand still in slack-jawed shock. Those 150 lines don't change...but what Shakespeare gives the performer, and the audience, is incredible. "Infinite variety" indeed!

Look at the lines he wrote, the phrases he coined, the words he created! Phrases like "brave new world," "dogs of war," "by any other name would smell as sweet," and "Methinks the lady protests too much." The words "gloomy," "bedroom," "bump," "monumental," "battlefield," and 1700 others were first heard in his plays.

"Shakespeare is magic." Absolutely, patrickU!

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