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He was born and died on this day…not the same year, though.
A lot of people can’t follow the lingo now but it can be done once you get used to it, and in his own day the audience followed all the lewd commetns with glee, fully participating no doubt.
In those days, water was very unhealthy. Some inconsiderate people used the cmmon water barrels as toilets. So people drank a lot of beer. Which means that the average audience were totally blotto.
As a boy I saw Antony and Cleopatra in Manchester. Antony, sword in hand, had a long long suicide speech, Near the end, someone shouted out, ‘go on, mister, stick it in’
But some of those plays are worth the work. Try King Lear, where an ageing father demands that his three daughters tell him how much they love him before he hands out his loot. Two are very fulsome in thier praise and are rewarded acordingly; the third, Cordelia, refuses to say a word of flattery and is disinherited as a punishment. Marvellous story. Near the end, when he begs Cordelia’s forgiveness as she had most cause, she just says, ‘no cause, no cause’ – a daughter’s genuine love.
im getting sick of shakey getting all the applause on my birthday
and that st george bstrd
who are they?
they dont even post in heregod i hate noobs!
@rogue trader wrote:
im getting sick of shakey getting all the applause on my birthday
and that st george bstrd
who are they?
they dont even post in heregod i hate noobs!
:shock: your birthday too rogue?
@sceptical guy wrote:
He was born and died on this day…not the same year, though.
A lot of people can’t follow the lingo now but it can be done once you get used to it, and in his own day the audience followed all the lewd commetns with glee, fully participating no doubt.
In those days, water was very unhealthy. Some inconsiderate people used the cmmon water barrels as toilets. So people drank a lot of beer. Which means that the average audience were totally blotto.
As a boy I saw Antony and Cleopatra in Manchester. Antony, sword in hand, had a long long suicide speech, Near the end, someone shouted out, ‘go on, mister, stick it in’
But some of those plays are worth the work. Try King Lear, where an ageing father demands that his three daughters tell him how much they love him before he hands out his loot. Two are very fulsome in thier praise and are rewarded acordingly; the third, Cordelia, refuses to say a word of flattery and is disinherited as a punishment. Marvellous story. Near the end, when he begs Cordelia’s forgiveness as she had most cause, she just says, ‘no cause, no cause’ – a daughter’s genuine love.
last year with the children at work I watched the film A Midsummer Nights dream complete with Shakespearean language……..it was totally engrossing which surprised me as I wasn’t looking forward to watching it at all.
I loved Mel Gibson’s Hamlet.
Lear remains my fave, despite some goodies like Othello etc etc
I took a mate once to see a production of Lear in Islington at the Almeida. He was bright, but had never seen Shakespeare (or live drama) before. However, he had suffered a lot of injustice in his life and he was drawn to the play after I told him I saw it as about Shakespeare asking the question of why unscrupulous pigs win out every time, while people who think of others go to the wall – every time. Winner takes it all.
Dr Johnson was so appalled by Lear that he re-wrote the end to make it happy. Lear and his rejected daughter Cordelia live happily ever after, whlle the schemers and liars are punished and Good Triumphs.
No, the darkness of that play is unremitting. Even when Lear finds his daughter’s love, it’s only to lose it as she is hung, and he carries her lifeless body while howling with impotent rage.
No wonder Shakespeare had to write Macbeth immediately afterwards, to show what happens to the murderers and liars who scheme their way into power, and the futility of their success when life becomes a tale full of sound and fury, told by an idiot.
My mate was enthralled by the play. The language has meaning when you want to follow it, and the rewards are great.
This is awful, but I am afraid having to read a lot of Shakespeare at school has put me off for life!
anc, I fully understand.
School killed all literature. I still remember Thomas Hardy and Milton lessons, with my eyes full of water so that I couldn’t see my watch properly – how long to go before the end of the lesson????
They’d chosen the Satan sections of Milton’s Paradise Lost because they worked out that adolescents love horrible things like Hitler and torture and Satan. But it wasn’t Paradise, it was Hell, nor were we out of it.
And Shakespeare is now Official England/Britain hoorah on a par with Booby Moore and England’s World Cup Victory and Britian winning gold medals in the Olympics. Enough to kill off anything
which is a shame.
I’m a Shakespeare fan ! Been to Stratford-upon-Avon many times and I love it there. We should be proud of our theatres and the wonderful language of William Shakespeare!
:)
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