Ahhh Shakespeare... upon hearing his name many cringe, even me! In order to enjoy Shakespeare, you must strip each play down to its bare bones - to the language. The language is an education in itself, but it is the most important part of his works.In Shakespeare's time, Elizabethan Theater was the highlight of townspeople from all walks of life – from the poor to the wealthy. The closer one was to the stage, the more expensive the seat. This is still true when attending a concert or play today. The purpose of going to a movie or play today is to unwind, relax and satisfy one’s imagination. Going to see a play at the Globe theater was an experience because each performance engaged the audience, making them an active participant in the story that unfolded. People did not go to the theater to see a play, they would say, I’m going to hear a play.
Today theater is highly advertised with press junkets, marketing schemes, and promotions that cost millions of dollars. Politicians in Shakespeare’s time were against the theater, as well as Puritan religious leaders who saw play going as whorish lust. Because of this, the Globe was prohibited from advertising its plays and relied on colored flags to let people in the area know what type of play would be performed – tragedy, comedy, or history. This of course did not stop thousands willing to pay their way into the theater to see the latest production. Plays were so popular for example, during one six-month season, a company gave one hundred fifty performances of thirty different plays.
Elizabethan Theater was unique in that it was simply constructed of a three-tier stage with actors who rarely used props and relied solely on their words. The three levels depicted heaven, earth and hell. The theater was round and open-air, with plays performed only during the day and using natural light to illuminate the stage. All actors were male because women were not allowed to perform and were not considered reputable. They wore makeup, an atrocity to the Puritans. There were little or no sexual scenes in the plays due to the male cast, which played to Shakespeare’s strength as a poet and playwright because the language was required to be more dramatic. Costumes were simple, yet the audience relied heavily on their imagination to tell the story.
It was important when attending a play to listen to the language because it often gave away stage directions, notes about the time of day, and poetic imagery. The language also helped the audience get to know the many sides of characters, who often engaged the audience with asides and soliloquies. The language of Shakespeare also includes literary devices such as alliteration and rhyme, giving it a certain rhythm. The beauty in understanding Shakespeare is that when recited aloud, one must use inflection and a range of emotions to portray a character and pave the way for visual imagery. If this is not done, meaning is lost and the audience will not get a great sense of how the characters relate to each other. When reciting Shakespeare, it is never spoken the way an American would typically speak. Surprisingly, one attending a play would not hear the cheery British performed now on stage, but English spoken by hillbillies.
Actors had a tremendous amount of work to do to feed the needs of audiences who flocked to see Shakespearean plays. Often plays were memorized in one week, which is not a lot of time to practice lines and make sure all runs smoothly for a live performance. With no director, actors were in complete control of the production – amazing to think no one directed as one sees today with directors getting paid billions to tell actors what to do and how to act. Shakespeare’s plays were never invented, but were derived from many different sources including written fictions and history. Shakespeare mastered a range of emotions in his plays from love and happiness to sorrow, hate, and death. It is hypothesized that Shakespeare even infused much of his own emotions into the characters. It is also interesting to note that Shakespeare did not own the rights to publish any of his plays because they were owned by the acting company.
What is your biggest challenge in reading Shakespeare?
What is your biggest challenge in reading Shakespeare?
A great resource for reading Shakespeare is No Fear Shakespeare. One side is Shakespeare and the other is plain English, brilliant!
