NB – This essay first appeared in the ezine The Rain, Party, and Other Disasters in 2016. It is re-printed here with permission of the editor. -twl
As with any of life’s notable “firsts,” I can remember vividly my very first experience of staged Shakespeare. It was a rollicking, no-holds-barred commedia dell’arte interpretation of The Taming of the Shrew, complete with slapstick comedy, rude sexual innuendo, innumerable physical shtick, and a cast that seemed to have inexhaustible energy. One unintended moment sticks out among them all. At one point during the famous Kate/Petruchio wooing scene, in what would now be called a “wardrobe malfunction,” one of Kate’s breasts came flouncing out of her low-cut Elizabethan dress. Completely undaunted and totally in character, the actress grabbed the exposed mammary and stuffed it defiantly back into its place, daring Petruchio and the audience to give even one scintilla of acknowledgement that they had seen what they had seen. I was hooked.
What you may think about Shakespeare’s work from a literary point of view is, frankly, irrelevant. Just the sheer size of the man’s output is staggering, and constitutes an impressive achievement beyond its literary value. It is a feat not duplicated in all of English literature, and probably in all of written literature of any culture by one person. Consider the following statistics: 37 recognized full-length 5-act plays that run an average of 3 hours when staged; 154 sonnets; 3 epic poems of 1855, 1180 and 329 lines; and all of this written with a quill pen and ink on parchment. Not including the plays he co-authored. All completed within 22 years. All completed within a lifespan of 52 years. All done in a non-industrialized society that had only a vague understanding of “historical preservation.” Scarce reference material of any sort from which to draw information other than one’s own knowledge and imagination. No formal education to speak of beyond grammar school. All done within the context of running a theatrical for-profit enterprise. In all, the most thorough literary investigation of the human psyche ever accomplished. There is no other single author whose body of work comes anywhere near this.
To an actor, what makes Shakespeare the most challenging of playwrights is the passion with which he writes. Shakespeare is the only playwright I have ever encountered on the stage into whose words you can throw all the passionate emotion you have, and the words come back laughing at you, saying, “Is that all you got?” You never, never have enough for Shakespeare. Never enough talent, never enough energy, never enough passion, never enough human understanding. It is a transformative experience, one in which an actor can truly lose one’s self. It is ecstatic in the way that saints and mystics speak about melding with God.
Shakespeare’s elixir is a heady one. It is flowing, image-rich poetry mixed with passionate human emotion mixed with outstanding storytelling. Shakespeare worms his way into your being at every level. He can get right down there and tell the cleverest dick jokes ever written (“It hangs like flax from a distaff; and I hope to see some good housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off!”), and then turn right around and speak poetry that feels as if it came straight from an angel’s heart (“My bounty is as boundless as the sea; my love as deep. The more I give to thee the more I have, for both are infinite.”) Fathers rage against daughters, sons against mothers, brothers against brothers. Eyes are gouged out, limbs and tongues are cut off, children are cooked and fed to their mother. Royalty hacks and slashes its way throughout the countryside, while common people provide the human perspective of subtle irony and utter incomprehension. Lovers cavort with the innocence of children in the woods, playing pranks on each other in disguise and in the open. Murder, revenge and jealousy corrode the noblest of men, destroy the women they love. Evil has no name, no motive, no reason. The places one has to search as an actor to find these types of characters provide the deepest understanding of yourself as a human being that you can possibly possess.
When speaking of my career regrets, the greatest is never having played one of the great title roles. When you get to know Shakespeare, you long to play those top roles, for you can sense and feel the challenge they pose. You never truly “get” Shakespeare until you act his words, create his characters. Hamlet, MacBeth, Anthony, Iago, Romeo – all these roles are now out of reach for me. I’ve always been typed as a character actor, doing a good number of comic roles such as Touchstone and Feste (a wonderful creature!). I’ve done Shylock, a deadly dark human being whose sorrow and anger are deep and abiding. Leonato, the father in Much Ado About Nothing, has become a favorite, an intriguing mix of humor, stateliness, and a startling moment of passion. I look ahead to Prospero and Lear, one who commands the forces of nature, and one who is ravaged by them. That’s the thing about Shakespeare; there is something for you to play at every time in your life, and something to learn by it.
Whatever you may think of the notion that one man named William Shakespeare wrote all these works is, in the end, inconsequential. It is the works that matter, and those are indisputable. Whatever confluences of forces came together 452 years ago on April 23, 1564 to produce this singular human being has never been repeated. I would not be the person I am today had it not been for having the opportunity to speak his words on a stage. In every instance and through every role, they have provided me with the illusion that I am a better man than I am in reality. Being the “poor player” that I am, I will be forever grateful for the richness of language Shakespeare left for me to speak. I have been pursuing the heart and soul of William Shakespeare for over 40 years. Without Will in my world, there is no world. Happy 454nd birthday, Will. Thanks for giving me an endless world of words, a lifetime of theatrical bliss.
PS – Getting my shot at Lear this summer 2018.