Doing Shakespeare: Myth #1

Bill.

The works of William Shakespeare—or ‘Bill’ as we call him—have inspired awe for 450 years, but he’s also inspired a lot of fear and foolishness.

Since I am directing As You Like It for Newnan Theatre Company and I need as many people to overcome that fear and foolishness as possible and come to the auditions, I need to address four myths about “doing Shakespeare.”

Myth #1: Shakespeare is boring.

I am sorry your English/Language Arts/theatre/Shakespeare teacher sucked. Because they most certainly did if you left the class thinking Shakespeare was boring.

You know what’s boring? Legal documents. Look at the Affordable Care Act or any similar legislation from our beloved Congress. Do you want to read that? Of course not, because that stuff is boring. (Important, but BO-ring.)

Now, how many live performances/readings are there of the ACA every night? Zero, because that stuff is boring.

Now look at Shakespeare. His works remain the most produced all over the world every year. Think about it: in every time zone around the planet, it’s curtain time at every hour in every day, and somewhere in that time zone one of Shakespeare’s plays is opening.

That means that every second of every day of every year, this man’s words are being spoken (in many languages) more than 450 years after his death. Boring? That is unpossible.

So why do you have this irrational fear that Shakespeare is boring?

Mostly, I would wager, because wherever you were introduced to him, you were taught to study his plays as Literature, a high altar at which all must worship. You resisted that, of course. And then there was the text of this so-called Literature: impenetrable chunks of verse, that “iambert pentatonix,” the inverted syntax, the heavy-duty metaphors, the inexplicable jokes. What is there to admire about any of that?

Here’s the deal, though: Shakespeare didn’t write his plays to be read. These are movie scripts, written quickly to catch the trend of the day (Marvel Universe/Wars of the Roses? same thing), and aimed at selling tickets to a largely illiterate population and yet appealing to the highly educated upper class. This stuff was action packed, terrifying, hilarious, heart-breaking. Boring it is not.

But if you didn’t have a teacher who taught you how to tackle that verse, who didn’t give you the tools to use those words to make Juliet or Cassius or Polonius come alive, who didn’t give you the chance to explore those words and decide what they meant to that character, didn’t get you on your feet and give you time to explore, make mistakes, make choices—in short, if your teacher didn’t give you the chance to perform that text, then of course you think it’s boring.

LESSON: Shakespeare is not boring. Come audition for AYLI at Newnan Theatre, Sun–Mon, Jan 26–27, 7:00 pm.

NEXT: You have to be smart to do Shakespeare.