Killing Shakespeare

I’ve seen an awful lot of Shakespeare in the last few weeks. From Titus Amatadramaticus to the Dublin Shakespeare Festival, I’m convinced of one thing. Someone is trying to murder Shakespeare.  I don’t mean that all the Shakespeare I saw was bad, by no means, but out of the four that I’ve seen, I’d rather eat my own sick than sit through at least HALF of it again. Here I exclude the two student productions that I saw at the RSAMD for these reasons:

1) They were under-done but they are produced by actors in training.

2) They were boldly acted, with energy and vigor.

3) The verse was often handled very well.

They weren’t perfect as I have previously written, but they made no attempt to, nor did the mistakenly murder Shakespeare in the process.

BUT THE OTHERS….

In the continued, misguided attempt to make Shakespeare “appeal to the masses”, “accessible”, “understood” and “appreciated”, companies (amateur, student and professional) keep producing weak, poorly performed Shakespeare. I’m by no means saying that I am somehow above this, but I state this to highlight that Shakespeare is very hard to do well, and very easy to kill stone dead.

Mark Coleman keeps popping into my head with the famous Goethe quote:

“I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of tightrope dancer, so that no incompetent would dare step onto it.”

Mark was very humble on his own blog, as he attempts to analyse his experience of playing Titus. I decided against blogging about the show, mainly because I had nothing positive to say about the acting and didn’t wish to piss on their parade for the sake of it.

I only wish that people saw how truly difficult Shakespeare is to do well, so that they would avoid coming off worse as they collide with it. Even worse, whatever the reason for performing the works of the Bard, these half-baked productions do not help give others “access” to Shakespeare, they send them screaming in the other direction. With the aim to offer Shakespeare, to enlighten, to tell his great tales, they are killing him, one stab at a time.

My friend and collaborator Philip says he hates Shakespeare, yet I do not see how it is possible. He is the finest and most skilful writer in the English language. To my mind, Philip’s experience of Shakespeare must be shite. Somewhere, in school or in the theatre, someone has ruined it for him.

It’s very clear to me that acting Shakespeare is tremendously difficult, killing him in performance is frighteningly casual and that before they decide to injure the Bard further, all actors, all production companies should stop and think.   I’m not saying ‘don’t do it’. I’m not saying that there is a good way or a right way to do it, but with Shakespeare, you have two chances of success, and it’s just like I enjoy a good steak, either raw and bloody OR well done.

Quality is what counts – theatre is not an experiment, it is a form of entertainment. When you ask the audience to indulge your poorly performed production, you damage your craft, you damage the theatre, and in this case, you damage Shakespeare. If you’re going to do him, do him well, or leave him to the professionals.

UPDATE: I’m not the first to think these thoughts obviously, but here’s something fascinating from the 1921 New York Times!