My Current Shakespeare Thoughts

So, my love-hate relationship with Shakespeare has already been established, but how do I currently feel about the bloke, and is it subject to change?

I'm gonna break it down into 3 categories:

1. Reading Shakespeare

2. Watching Shakespeare

3. Performing Shakespeare

Each category will receive a score out of 10 reflecting my current attitude towards it. The final score will be out of 30, and after 6 months, I will come back and reassess!

Reading Shakespeare

I'll be honest, I still can't read Shakespeare without the modern-day translation next to it. And to be even more honest, once I start reading the modern version, I stop reading the Shakespearean text. So I don't actually read that much Shakespeare.

I get tired of reading quickly, especially with texts I don't understand, so reading Shakespeare is a challenge for me. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have a TikTok-curated attention span of 15 seconds max. This makes reading hard. Focused reading, harder! And Shakespeare is long. What feels like waffle, all has meaning and is delicately written. But to decipher that takes time. Most of the free time I have to read is right before bed or on the bus to work, which is when peak boredom hits and I decide I'd rather take a nap.

I've read pure Shakespeare during table reads or scene studies at school, but never a full play out of pure interest. This obviously needs to change. But from the texts I have read, I really enjoy the poetic nature of Shakespeare's words and phrases. One such is "Will all great Neptune's oceans wash this blood clean from my hand?" - Macbeth Act 2 Scene 2. It's descriptive and beautiful, and unnecessarily ornamented, but I think that's why we enjoy it. There is a timelessness to it. It wouldn't be the same if we adapted it with modern references. "Will the murky Thames Water cleanse my hand of blood?" It doesn't hit quite the same as Shakespeare, does it?

I think another difficulty in reading Shakespeare is his writing style. The strict structure of Iambic pentameter and the switching up of blank verse and prose means that we, as readers, have to switch on to his literary devices and word play to get around these forms. Basically, he's making us do a lot of work as a reader. There is a lot of subtext hidden in the way the lines are written, and they are little gifts for performers, but it also means that you have to read the same text a couple of times to understand it fully. That might have been doable in Jacobean times, but sadly, many of us don't have the time to read it over and over now.

Final Score: 6/10

Watching Shakespeare

I live in London, and there always seems to be some sort of Shakespeare production on. You just can't escape it. Currently: Icke's Romeo and Juliet, The Globe's The Tempest, and upcoming Regents Park's A Midsummer Night's Dream, to name a few. And of course, The Globe has Shakespeare going on year-round. But why?

I think it's because when Shakespeare is done well, it is an absolute delight to watch on stage. The stories and circumstances of the characters in his plays feel oddly relatable, yet so far removed from our own, that you are compelled by the journey and the choices individuals make. Like, I can relate to Caliban's distaste for serving a master he cares not for. But in reality, I am not a deformed beast lusting over my evil manager's daughter.

When you are watching actors onstage who know what they are doing (understanding what they are saying and realising the stakes), it is a cathartic experience at the end of the play, when everything comes to a resolution. But when I'm on YouTube watching people share their Shakespeare monologues or American college productions of his work, I want to gouge my eyes out (no shade). Maybe this is too harsh, but they are monumentally bad, and their internet privileges should be revoked.

In all honesty, though, when Shakespeare is done badly (even by professionals), it is a hard watch. It's difficult enough trying to keep up with the language's foreignness without the added struggle of watching people onstage, unsure of what they are doing. I just find it painful and can never get through it. Even Shakespeare's words can't stop bad theatre.

Shakespeare's work feels like it goes on for too long. The man loved to write, but as a spectator of his work, I find myself feeling that he should've wrapped it up about an hour before it finished. As compelling as his storylines can be and as amazing as the actors are, our attention spans are shorter, making it hard to keep up with the twists and turns.

Final Score 7/10

Performing Shakespeare

I LOVE performing Shakespeare! It's so dramatic, and the stakes are always so high; it is an absolute playground for exploring emotion and tactics, and the greatest form of make-believe. The only way I can describe it is like when you were a kid, making up spy scenarios, or pretending you're on a pirate ship, or having a tea party that goes wrong. You invest so heavily, and it is so joyous to exist in that world.

Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of work and requires a lot of the actors emotionally and physically, but the payoff is fantastic. The process of learning the lines and understanding the meaning can be lengthy and challenging, but in the right rehearsal room, it feels like a holistic exploration where happy accidents are more than likely to occur. It allows space for you to understand it physically and in context, working against another actor.

I think another fun thing about performing Shakespeare is that its themes and topics remain culturally and societally relevant. Although the language is archaic, the themes of love, hate, power, and greed are still prevalent and is intresting to explore in different contexts. There's something about the weight of the way Shakespeare handles these themes that feels much stronger than in many contemporary or modern plays.

Final Result: 9/10

Total Result

After analysing each category, the final score is (drum roll please............) 22/30. A higher score than I was expecting to be honest, but I think the enjoyment I get from performing Shakespeare outweighs all the cons. I'm sure that when I do this again in a couple of months' time, the score will change, albeit not drastically, but I am content with where it is now.

Feel free to comment your scores and reasoning below so you can look back and see how they've changed.

Lots of Love,

Benjamin Molalign xx