I just don't get...

[NoJo]

...Shakespeare plays.

I tried watching one on TV last night, couldn't understand a fucking thing. Then I watched an episode of Columbo, circa 1973. That, I get.

If anybody wants to explain why he's the best writer ever, I'd be happy to listen

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I'm not a fan. Which one did you watch?

 

[oggbashan]

Try this:

https://youtu.be/KkmSIy8PayY

https://youtu.be/j2ml2APbWeQ

 

[SimonDoom]

I love Columbo and Shakespeare.

To really appreciate Shakespeare you have to read and watch enough of his plays that it no longer feels like a foreign language. Once you've done that, his stuff is magical. Unmatched in the complexity and nuance of his characters and the way they interact with one another. And the poetry is better than anything else in drama.

Columbo is more Dostoevsky than Shakespeare -- he's basically Porfiry from Crime and Punishment. One of the all-time best-conceived TV characters, brilliantly played by Peter Falk. The very first episode of Columbo, and one of the best, was directed by none other than Steven Spielberg, before he became famous from Jaws.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I love Columbo and Shakespeare.

To really appreciate Shakespeare you have to read and watch enough of his plays that it no longer feels like a foreign language. Once you've done that, his stuff is magical. Unmatched in the complexity and nuance of his characters and the way they interact with one another. And the poetry is better than anything else in drama.

Columbo is more Dostoevsky than Shakespeare -- he's basically Porfiry from Crime and Punishment. One of the all-time best-conceived TV characters, brilliantly played by Peter Falk. The very first episode of Columbo, and one of the best, was directed by none other than Steven Spielberg, before he became famous from Jaws.

Funny. That's the same thing I had to do to find out I really, really don't like them. Not liking them isn't tantamount to misunderstanding them. I make an exception for Hamlet, but the rest... no, thanks.

I am deeply saddened to hear Columbo has anything in common with Porfiry. I have never watched Columbo. However, it went off right before something I watched came on for a while, so I saw bits of the tail end and I am now struggling with my image of Porfiry. Dostoevsky is another author one can fall in love with in one book and be disappointed in the others. Crime and Punishment was my favorite book in high school, but our library didn't have any of Dostoevsky's other books. I was so excited when I finally got access to others that I checked a bunch out. Brothers Karamazov was no Crime and Punishment, but it was nice. I could have cried from disappointment when I read The Fool. I don't even remember which ones I read after that, but they didn't get better I hate it when famous authors are people, too.

 

[lovecraft68]

Product of the times, closest I ever got to enjoying any of it was that Decaprio Romeo and Juliet movie that had a lot of the actual dialogue, but set in modern times, just strange enough to hold my attention.

Columbo...don't remember much
Ever watch Beretta? I think he was the one that had the Bird with him.

 

[KeithD]

...Shakespeare plays.

I tried watching one on TV last night, couldn't understand a fucking thing. Then I watched an episode of Columbo, circa 1973. That, I get.

If anybody wants to explain why he's the best writer ever, I'd be happy to listen

I like Columbo more than Shakespeare to experience on TV, because I turn to TV for entertainment and distraction. Sitting in the old Roman Curium Theater on Cyprus, with the Mediterranean as a backdrop, I'll take Shakespeare over Columbo. What's really neat about Shakespeare to me, however, is how often and well it can be respun later (e.g., West Side Story or Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead) to pull out new perspectives on universal themes. How has Columbo been used that way (I'm will to be there are Columbo plotlines that were purposely taken from Shakespeare.)

Of course we don't know if Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare. The "best writer" game doesn't appeal to me.

On good writing for TV, I'll take Masterpiece Theatre over most anything else, but I do have trouble figuring out what they are saying half the time--and I spent many years in British expatriate areas--and even on the stage with Brits (and even, I'll confess, in a Shakespeare play or three).

 

[KeithD]

I thought this was interesting: 10 TV shows based on Shakespearean plays:

https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/slideshow/4059/tv-shows-based-on-shakespeare-plays/1/

 

[Handley_Page]

I confess you have to work at it a time or two.

Personally,
I have a few issues with the actual timing of the words - the rhythm, if you like.
But who cannot admire the "Once more . . " etc. speech.

My favourite is Duke Thomas Beaufort to the King of France.


Try the Burton/Taylor of 'the Taming of the Shrew'. It's brilliant, and funny.

That don't mean I love ALL of Shakepeare's works, you understand, (I think Ogg understands it better than I), and occasionally, you have to find a convenient manner of English.

 

[roowa]

Try this:

https://youtu.be/KkmSIy8PayY

https://youtu.be/j2ml2APbWeQ

I just recently discovered Shakespeare's Globe. One of the hurdles I've always had to Shakespeare (and many plays in general) is the production and audio quality. But this group does such a great job with both that neither are distractions. Add to that, great interpretations and acting, and it makes Shakespeare much more approachable to me.

As an American (I think that's why), I still struggle with understanding quite often, in the same way that I used to struggle with Monty Python (which I used to watch with subtitles just to help me understand the words they were saying). Once I got to the point that I wasn't struggling with their accents, I had to sort out several euphemisms and such that I simply wasn't familiar with. There were a lot of 'hurdles' but I stuck with it and eventually was rewarded with countless laugh-out-loud moments with their shows.

And there's some really interesting stuff available online that makes me appreciate Shakespeare so much more than I used to. Like some of the videos from RSC Shakespeare Learning Zone (This one I especially liked about rhetorical arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPlvuv8SSk). But at the end of the day, enjoying Shakespeare doesn't come natural to me and sometimes feels a lot like work.

Columbo...don't remember much
Ever watch Beretta? I think he was the one that had the Bird with him.

All I remember of Columbo was he always had a cigar and a trenchcoat and he kept feeling his pockets because he kept losing something. Oh, and hd said "Just one more thing..." in nearly every episode, kinda like the villain in Scooby Doo almost always said "And I would've gotten away with it if was wasn't for those meddling kids!" at the end of the episode.
Yep. I just wove Scooby Doo into a discussion about Shakespeare.

I thought this was interesting: 10 TV shows based on Shakespearean plays:
https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/slideshow/4059/tv-shows-based-on-shakespeare-plays/1/

Also interesting is the number of movies based on Shakespearean plays:
She's The Man
10 Things I Hate About You
The Lion King
West Side Story
And those are just some obvious ones. I bet there's a ton more that were 'inspired' by Shakespeare.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

The more modern versions of Shakespeare (not the adaptations with modern dialogue, but the more recent TV and movie versions of the original words) are easier to understand, I think. A lot of the older versions had a very put on, overly British delivery that detracted from the flow of the words.

I second the shout out to Baz Lurhman's Romeo and Juliet.
I also recommend Kenneth Brannagh's Henry V
There's a good version of Hamlet with David Tennet

I think the lure of Shakespeare is the timelessness of his stories. Even the "histories" aren't that historical, and are more about the political initrigues than anything to do with the actual history of the Kings involved.

But, you wanna know where RomCom's come from? Blame Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Family drama? King Lear
A story fit for our very own Loving Wives category? Othello

Those are just the really famous ones I can think of off the top of my head. And so many of his stories have been adapted and remade, Like Keith's (I think it was him) list. But certainly, "West Side Story" is basically Romeo and Juliet but with 1950s gangs. "Ten Things I Hate About You" is a remake of Taming of the Shrew.

The plays are very wordy. And the actors need to be comfortable enough with the language for it to flow out of them, with the proper candence and emphasis (which sometimes screws up the meter, and [I think] that's the difference between the earlier versions and the more modern ones. In the more modern films, the actors seem less worried about sticking to the meter and making the rhymes, and more concerned about conveying the emotion in the words, which helps with understanding). A poorly done, or even mediocre, version can definitely be tedious.

Anyway, this may not change your enjoyment of Shakespeare, NoJo, but that's why I like his works. There's nothing wrong with enjoying Columbo, either.

 

[Bramblethorn]

...Shakespeare plays.

I tried watching one on TV last night, couldn't understand a fucking thing. Then I watched an episode of Columbo, circa 1973. That, I get.

If anybody wants to explain why he's the best writer ever, I'd be happy to listen

I'm in a regular Shakespeare reading group. We get together every once in a while and perform one of his plays, currently over Zoom.

The period language can be an obstacle, but that can be overcome either with time and patience or by getting an appropriately annotated version. Sometimes it's helpful just to read a Wiki summary of the plot beforehand, so you know the general idea and can more easily figure out what people are saying.

Beyond that... I sympathise.

Shakespeare has his strengths, and it's easy for a modern reader to miss them because so many later authors have built on his work that it becomes lost in the English cultural background. He invented hundreds of words and dozens of great expressions which are now just everyday parts of the language. Reading his work, one doesn't notice "admirable", "schoolboy", etc. etc. as being novelties, but they were.

Similarly, his best plots have been imitated over and over. He didn't invent the tragic trope of "great man is destroyed by his own faults" but he did a lot with it.

OTOH [blasphemy alert] not everything Shakespeare wrote was great. A lot of his comedies depend on people being really, reallly, REALLY stupid, fooled by identical twins (who aren't wearing the same clothes and probably don't even have the same accent, but LOL TWINS) or basic disguises.

(I will cut him some slack for the "lol guy falls in love with a guy not realising he's actually a girl in disguise" plots because those are intrinsically hot.)

And most of what he has to say about male-female relationships and race relations is, er, let's just move along. Our group will probably skip Titus Andronicus...

IMHO he's one of the most important writers of English history, and deserves to be taught, but I'm not sure he ought to be canonised the way he has been. When I studied Shakespeare in school the vibe was very much "everything he wrote is immensely clever and your job as a student is to recognise that and blather about it". It becomes a bit of a self-perpetuating cult.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

It's not easy

Anything worthwhile requires work. Breaking par on the links means you've hit a lot of slices, worked at your game and learned. Writing a good sonnet takes study. So does learning to play a musical instrument. And so does fully appreciating a play in 500-year-old phrases.

So why bother?

Michael Hart, in his The 100, A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, placed Shakespeare at #36 – ahead of Edison, Stalin, William the Conqueror, Thomas Jefferson, Fermi or Planck – and just one behind Hitler at #35. Why? His explanation is long and complex, but to take just one bit of it, call it ‘staying power’. Name one other writer has been so widely and consistently enjoyed. Hart asks, I think correctly, who today reads such eminent writers as Homer, Virgil or Chaucer unless required to? Yet millions upon millions of people attend Shakespearean plays every year. His are the most popular plays written – ever, in any language. Centuries of writers have been influenced by his works. There has to be something there worth looking at.

Consider following phrases:

• pure as the driven snow
• break the ice
• be-all-and-end-all
• brave new world
• cold comfort
• devil incarnate
• eat me out of house and home
• the game’s afoot (no, it wasn’t Sherlock Holmes)
• give the devil his due
• good riddance
• love is blind

Those and dozens – hundreds - of other phrases you and I use daily were coined by old Willy. His influence on the English language had been profound. If nothing else, we as wordsmiths can learn from him.

Let’s just take it as read that there’s a lot in Shakespeare. But, like anything else of value, you need to work at it.

How?

Well, I like some of the more modern movies. Romeo and Juliette set in modern California seems somehow easier than in medieval Italy. Ian McKellen as Richard III is a thoroughly modern tyrant, one close to our understanding. A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer is a good one. Mel Gibson in Hamlet or Kenneth Branagh as Henry V. Somehow these are easier to grasp than some of the older versions.

I’d suggest watching them with a high-school textbook, one explaining obsolete terms and usages, close at hand. You can pause, look up a word and rerun a scene. Go through it once to learn the meanings and then watch it again for enjoyment.

My call, anyway.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

Kenneth Brannagh's 'HenryV was the first time a Shakepeare play enthralled me; hubby always said that Brannagh was the first actor he'd come across who actually understood the meter, cadence, and the changed sense of the words, and acted, didn't just stand there and declaim; for the first time ever, I actually got the jokes, they made me laugh. The St Crispin's Day speech actually moved me to tears, and I'm a hard-edged cynical bitch. Watch Brannagh and see if you don't revise your opinions.

EDIT***

Hubby just told me that the word 'drag' as in men in women's clothing is a Shakespearean notation for 'dressed as a girl' where boys played female roles because women were not allowed to act on stage. Taken with a pinch of salt...

 

[BelleCanzuto]

OTOH [blasphemy alert] not everything Shakespeare wrote was great. A lot of his comedies depend on people being really, reallly, REALLY stupid, fooled by identical twins (who aren't wearing the same clothes and probably don't even have the same accent, but LOL TWINS) or basic disguises.

When I studied Shakespeare in school the vibe was very much "everything he wrote is immensely clever and your job as a student is to recognise that and blather about it". It becomes a bit of a self-perpetuating cult.

Yes! And I don't think that's blasphemy at all. It's just the RomCom formula crossed with very broad comedy. A lot of his comedies aren't much different than "The Hangover" and "Bridesmaids", which were highly popular movies, but no one's idea of high art. And I think that's part of the problem with the "cult" of Shakespeare, is forgetting that a lot of his plays, really the majority of his plays, were written as popular entertainment. But because of the longevity of his popularity, and just the amount of time that's passed, that gets forgotten. He wasn't writing for the Court, he was writing for the folks who could afford an afternoon in that era's version of the movie megaplex.

Kenneth Brannagh's 'HenryV was the first time a Shakepeare play enthralled me; hubby always said that Brannagh was the first actor he'd come across who actually understood the meter, cadence, and the changed sense of the words, and acted, didn't just stand there and declaim; for the first time ever, I actually got the jokes, they made me laugh. The St Crispin's Day speech actually moved me to tears, and I'm a hard-edged cynical bitch. Watch Brannagh and see if you don't revise your opinions.

I almost mentioned the St Crispin's Day speech specifically, but everything about that movie was excellent. And I think Brannagh paved the way for a lot of other actors to dispense with the stentorian declaiming that affected so many of the earlier actors.

 

[SimonDoom]

I almost mentioned the St Crispin's Day speech specifically, but everything about that movie was excellent. And I think Brannagh paved the way for a lot of other actors to dispense with the stentorian declaiming that affected so many of the earlier actors.

It's interesting to contrast Brannagh's version of the speech with Laurence Olivier's, from the version of the movie he made during World War 2. Brannagh has a much more natural style. Olivier, to me, comes across as very much an actor, sounding like an actor, not a real person. Olivier also botches some of the lines, which I think is interesting given his resume and reputation.

 

[NoJo]

Well, I admit, it's mainly the arcane language in Shakespeare that bothers me, and yes, I guess I've never really made the effort to get past that. I blame the people who set the English 'O'-level school syllabus:

Pretty much everyone from the UK was made to study at least one Shakespeare play - I had to read The Taming of the Shrew, about an assertive woman who gets put in her place by her boorish husband. As a fifteen-year-old sub who spent more time reading the "Oh, Wicked Wanda" comic pages in my brother's old Penthouse magazines than on my English homework I found the humiliation of Kate slightly upsetting, and imagined a version where Kate subdues Petruchio and he ends up her chastened foot-slave.

Although Chaucer's language is even harder for me to understand than Shakespeare's, when the Canturbury Tales was televised as "Trinity Tales" in the 1970's, with modern language, I loved it - funny and bawdy.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

It's interesting to contrast Brannagh's version of the speech with Laurence Olivier's, from the version of the movie he made during World War 2. Brannagh has a much more natural style. Olivier, to me, comes across as very much an actor, sounding like an actor, not a real person. Olivier also botches some of the lines, which I think is interesting given his resume and reputation.

i agree. A while ago Ogg (I think it was) posted a YouTube clip of Olivier's speech backed by the soundtrack to that speech from the Brannagh movie. The contrast was jarring to me, having watched the Brannagh movie so many times (and literally wearing out a cassette of the soundtrack), the rhythm of the Olivier delivery seemed wrong somehow.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

...There's a good version of Hamlet with David Tennet...

Tennet is casting genius for Hamlet. I haven't seen it, but perhaps I will.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

It's interesting to contrast Brannagh's version of the speech with Laurence Olivier's, from the version of the movie he made during World War 2. Brannagh has a much more natural style. Olivier, to me, comes across as very much an actor, sounding like an actor, not a real person. Olivier also botches some of the lines, which I think is interesting given his resume and reputation.

100% agree; Olivier's version is just the stage play translated directly to the screen with a couple of lusciously colored outdoor scenes cut in so the audience didn't die of boredom, and it shows; Olivier is very much an 'Act-TOR', declaiming grandly and exaggeratedly at the drop of a hat, and the stagey setting and lack of smooth transition or emotional connection between Olivier and the Bards words from set-piece to set-piece just turns the whole thing into a crashing bore-fest. Brannagh did it much, much better.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

i agree. A while ago Ogg (I think it was) posted a YouTube clip of Olivier's speech backed by the soundtrack to that speech from the Brannagh movie. The contrast was jarring to me, having watched the Brannagh movie so many times (and literally wearing out a cassette of the soundtrack), the rhythm of the Olivier delivery seemed wrong somehow.

One of the most emotionally uplifting takes on the 'St Crispin Day' speech I've ever seen was in the movie 'Renaissance Man', where redundant businesssman Danny DeVito is teaching a group of army misfits basic literacy and numeracy, and he uses Henry V as a teaching aid. The drill sergeant, Gregory Hines, is contemptuous of the whole thing, until, while the recruits are out on night exercises, he tries to trip up one of the recruits by mocking his attempts to learn, and the kid recites the entire speech in the dark and the pouring rain as the soldiers around him gradually stop what they're doing to stand and listen to him. That scene always gives me a catch in my throat

 

[GroverLang]

Shakespeare live

You have to remember Shakespeare didn’t write his plays for film or television.

Shakespeare’s plays were written for the stage in Elizabethan times and the settings were different from today. The audience sat on three sides of what is called a “thrust” stage. Actors would enter from the proscenium arch and also through the audience. It’s very weird when you are sat in the rear stall seats and an actor suddenly stands next to you waiting for their entrance and then goes bounding past you in the other direction when they exit.

If you want to fully appreciate his plays you need to see them performed as they were originally. I’ve seen them on television but I’ve also seen them performed on many occasions by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon. There is no comparison.

As an introduction to Shakespeare I would suggest three plays. The Merry Wives of Windsor is an extremely funny farce. The Merchant of Venice is funny and Othello is a fascinating tragedy.

But I can see why people brought up in a world of television and films would have difficulty in getting the hang of it.

 

[KeithD]

Americans can see them either at the Folger gallery in Washington, D.C. (I assume that's still in operation) or at the Blackfriars Playhouse, the Shakespearean Theater, which is a replica of the Globe Theater, in Staunton, Virginia.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Hubby just told me that the word 'drag' as in men in women's clothing is a Shakespearean notation for 'dressed as a girl' where boys played female roles because women were not allowed to act on stage. Taken with a pinch of salt...

A large pinch of salt! 20th/21st-century English has created a lot of words from acronyms, but before then it was virtually known. Not that people didn't use initialisms ("B.C.", "E.R.", etc. etc.) but they didn't seem to turn them into independent words like we do now.

There are plenty of folk etymologies that claim acronymic formations for much older words (For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge; Constable On Patrol; Port Outwards, Starboard Home etc. etc.) but none of them are well supported.

AFAICT, "drag" in the sense of cross-dressing does come from the theatre, but the first reported use is around 1870 - long after Shakespeare, probably too early for it to be an acronym.

Boys playing female roles was definitely a thing, though, and would presumably have been part of the gag in some of his comedies where the woman, played by a boy, disguises herself as a man.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

You have to remember Shakespeare didn’t write his plays for film or television.

Shakespeare’s plays were written for the stage in Elizabethan times and the settings were different from today. The audience sat on three sides of what is called a “thrust” stage. Actors would enter from the proscenium arch and also through the audience. It’s very weird when you are sat in the rear stall seats and an actor suddenly stands next to you waiting for their entrance and then goes bounding past you in the other direction when they exit.

If you want to fully appreciate his plays you need to see them performed as they were originally. I’ve seen them on television but I’ve also seen them performed on many occasions by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon. There is no comparison.

As an introduction to Shakespeare I would suggest three plays. The Merry Wives of Windsor is an extremely funny farce. The Merchant of Venice is funny and Othello is a fascinating tragedy.

But I can see why people brought up in a world of television and films would have difficulty in getting the hang of it.

You can't even go to a Renaissance Fair here without running into a production of something by Shakespeare. Not the best, obviously, but they're also put on by production companies and community theaters all over the country, in addition to some of the more well-known stages. Most major cities have Shakespeare in the park every summer. I'm not sure people are really all that unfamiliar with the concept. I could be wrong, but it seems fairly accessible. I'm sure it's different in different places.

I'm not sure stage management or anything intrinsic to the play format is the problem for most people. For many, like Nojo, it's the language. For me, it's what I deem abominable plots (except for Hamlet.) For the more farcical pieces, I think you really have to be able to enjoy the language to enjoy the play because they just aren't high drama. A lot of them are a bunch of stock characters brought together in a contrived fashion. The repartee is the strength of those plays, and if someone just isn't into Elizabethan English, I think that's going to keep them from enjoying those plays' best feature.