Something more about "The Shrew"

Something more about „The Shrew“  which might be a „comedy“ after all, (and an apology)

I didn’t intend to resume my blog so soon, although what would have been my next entry is already written, but there was something more about "The Shrew". Something that happened in “real life”, but “real life” stays out of here. It made me fully realize, though, how deeply I had become involved with the cynical content of “The Shrew”. And what a true “horror-story” my reading had become. I had had so much fun using “real life issues” as some kind of story that I didn’t realize how dark this story had become. And, when I did, I loved it even more …

I found a possible explanation for this after having watched the version of “The Shrew” from “Shakespeare Retold” by the BBC. Where they made a modern film version of four of the plays, and the three I have already watched are really great. In particular it is interesting and entertaining what kind of people they imagined these characters to be in “our” world. And to see which parts of the story are still working great, in a modern context, and which of them have to be changed – especially in the case of “The Shrew”! And I was very pleased that all the three “versions” – the old BBC version, the one of “Shakespeare Retold”, and the one in my own head – are “love-stories” embedded into a truly horrid, weird, and troubling world. A world where it is really difficult to be a “human being”. As this might be the two indispensable elements to make this play “work”. And I remembered that I had always held the opinion that Shakespeare’s comedies aren’t “comedies”. And this is the first time I found convincing proof against this view! Which probably doesn’t apply to all the comedies, which are very different. But I have decided for myself that “The Shrew” indeed is a comedy because I realized that this misapprehension about Shakespeare’s comedies might have something to do with “our” modern conception of what a comedy is. Because, if we take the most widespread type of comedy as a reference – which is a “Hollywood” kind of “romantic comedy” – a comedy is something that should make us feel good about ourselves. And this is probably very far from what a comedy has been in Elizabethan times. For these people going to the theatre to see a comedy meant a great occasion to laugh about the mishaps, disasters, and the weirdness and foolishness of other peoples’ lives. Which probably made them feel better about themselves as well because it was not them but other people to whom these things happened. And I think this type of comedy, or humour, is not generally understood anymore, or even deemed “appropriate” or “ethical”. At least not outside a small domain which is called “Great Britain”. Which is, surprisingly, the same domain where still the greatest actors, the greatest comedies and the best humour come from … It isn’t “coincidence”, of course, and I am convinced that only the BBC could have made such a “shrewed” and “true” modern comedy version of “The Shrew”, exactly because, within this context, the “ancient” type of comedy still exists as a reference. (There is the “romantic comedy” version as well, of course from “Hollywood”: “Ten Things I Hate About You”, with Heath Ledger.) As the Brits might be the only people in the world who are still able to laugh about people dying in car-crashes or being incinerated by chip-pan fires! And I think this is okay. It is not that these things make me laugh as well, in general, but there might be a reason why I don’t watch “Pretty Woman” but “House of Cards” when I want to feel better about myself!

Regarding “The Shrew” it might even be the way both types of comedy are intermingled and “work together” that makes it such an interesting, beautifully ambiguous, and challenging play. Because what made the strange love-story so interesting, and moving, for me was the context it is set in: the horrible background of “ordinary” people, or, in “Shakespeare Retold”, of rich and “fashionable” people everybody thinks he wants to be a part of. Because this background brings the love-story out as something unlikely and really precious. Something that might really “mean” something.

(And, by the way, I think this is what happens, daily, in “real life” as well. When people are fighting for their most important issues, defeating the “mess” day after tedious day, determined to write a “good” story about themselves and, by this, becoming the “heroes” of their own lives. I know, if this is an apology it is a really “shrewed” one!)