Some kind of epilogue

The leaves are definitely falling now – I mean, in late October when I wrote this – and the great „Shakespeare event“ of the year has come and gone: the National Theatre’s production of „Hamlet“ with Benedict Cumberbatch. When I am looking at the “ladies queue meter” – which, since “The Crucible”, became my scale for measuring the “fame factor” of these events - it was quite obviously THE theatre event of the year. Seeing “The Crucible” in February I was twenty minutes early and just made it. For “Hamlet” I was still earlier I think, but there was no chance. The queue had stretched out to the entrance … and, this time, I was definitely one of the elder “ladies”! - But, joking apart, as I said to myself concerning “The Crucible”: If “this” gets people into the theatre, even if they are almost exclusively women, and they see something really great then the part where the actor takes off his shirt – which Benedict Cumberbatch didn’t even have to do, if I remember this correctly – served its purpose.

And it WAS really great, by the way! I was especially gratified that I had been right about what I thought when I first learned that he was to play “Hamlet”. That, like Ian McKellen for Lear, he would be definitely THE actor to play “Hamlet” at this point in time. Contrary to what he himself said, I am not at all of the opinion that every actor might play Hamlet – or should! – because what I had seen until then were basically spectacular failures at playing Hamlet (by Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, even David Tennant). And there is probably no character in Shakespeare that raises so many unanswered questions and is so contradictory in itself as Hamlet. And often a very direct and uncomplicated approach, as in this case, serves best. Apart from Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet in the modern film version, this was the first time I actually “met” Hamlet. In any of the other productions I was just watching a great actor playing him. And the whole production is equally strong, as to who they cast for the other characters, even the women!, and as to how well all the actors understand and play their part.

But the “ladies queue meter” is certainly relative. For me it wasn’t THE event of the year. I absolutely loved watching it because the acting was generally so good, but it didn’t answer a single one of the many questions I had reading the play, and didn’t raise new ones. Contrary to the RSC cinema production with David Tennant which brought me to an understanding of what that play probably “is about”, at its most comprehensive level. I know I am still very far from having nailed it, but what I am getting out of it is basically about people lying all the time – mostly not because they are “bad” and devious but because their lie is so deeply embedded within their lives that it would destroy them if it was “routed out” – and about the ensuing havoc and destruction that results from this basic untruthfulness and incessant endeavour of burying and hiding the truth. There are a few moments where this production cut to the bone, I think, but in this case what Shakespeare wrote “goes down” so much deeper. And is partly so sophisticated that it is even impossible to have it out “on stage” or “on camera”. Because much of it is in the “odd bits” that you don’t even understand until you have read it very closely and thought a lot about it. And I know I haven’t (yet). I’d never had thought so, but maybe “Hamlet” is “getting me” after all … I absolutely planned, by the way, NOT to write a treatise about “Hamlet”. And I won’t. But the most intriguing example so far for what I just said was that I became aware that none of the productions I have seen elaborates on the reason why Ophelia becomes mad, or is in the least interested in it – even though Shakespeare wrote this story so carefully, in an ongoing process of hints and riddles and constant “equivocation”. I think from the first time I ever saw “Hamlet”, which was when I was between fifteen and twenty, when I saw the production by the BBC with Derek Jacobi on tv, I was disgusted and intrigued by the scene where Gertrude is reporting Ophelia’s death. Especially when she enumerates the flowers Ophelia is playing with, and, like Polonius earlier on in the play, I thought: “This is too long!” And I certainly still don’t understand every scrap of meaning that Shakespeare put into his “puzzle”, but it certainly IS too long for the purpose of just conjuring up this image of the beautiful dead girl floating in the water with all these flowers around her. At least when she comes to elaborating about the “dead man’s fingers” which “liberal shepherds give a grosser name”, which is now really hitting us on the head with the metaphor to make us realize that we don’t have the complete truth! And maybe not even the most important part of it …? - And I might write a similar story about Gertrude, or Claudius, who’s tale of lies is the most obvious, and other characters still, but the case of Ophelia is the most striking because she appears so “innocent” and sincere at first sight – but, even on a less sophisticated level, is not. There is no “good” and “bad”: Every character is deeply entangled in this web of lies, which not even Hamlet - who is in fact this strange hero-figure, as whom I knew Benedict Cumberbatch would play him, come into this world to “set it right” - stands any chance to unravel.

Okay, I have finally succeeded in tricking myself into writing this treatise nonetheless … At least it is very short. And, as I said, still it was not THE event of the year. There are even three productions now that would have to share this title because I liked them for different reasons. One of them certainly was “The Crucible” because of how perfect and perceptive and powerful it was, and because of the very unexpected impact it had on me. But top of the list for “just beautiful” is certainly the “Othello” production by the RSC, (which my September blog is about, and) which was even equally intelligent and perceptive. But the most striking and surprising thing I have seen – and where the “ladies queue meter” failed completely because there were about ten other people in Munich who have seen it – was the new production of “Titus Andronicus” by the Globe Theatre. Of course there would be a lot to be said about this, but I’ll just say how marvelous it was to see this orgy of blood and gore and slaughter being turned into something so enjoyable – even supremely funny at times. And that was because it is so important to PLAY every tiny part of it, not just stand there and say these lines!, to make us see, and enjoy, what is in the play. And there is, as usual, a treasure of “human content”, even though of the most questionable kind. I think this was even the best production by the Globe Theatre I have seen. I have now at least six or seven of them on dvd, and all of them are great!

But now about something completely different … which is some kind of epilogue because, as I said, I feel that this long chapter about Shakespeare is now drawing to a close. So I’ll tie up some loose ends and, at the same time, lead over to what will probably be my next “big issue”.

I think one of the most important things I have learned by dealing seriously with this kind of issues at uni, and which “came out” a long time after I had finished dealing with them, was that you cannot take something like theory of literature, or philosophy, or even what we call “history”, seriously. Which means you cannot make any of this a tool for finding your own truth. There is no “objective” way to separate truth from bullshit, but still “truth” is what matters most to me. And, accordingly, the greatest benefit of analytical/philosophical thinking is not that it helps you to “pin down” objective truths, but enables you to draw out YOUR truth systematically and see it more clearly, and, in that way, make it “work” better. Because what really matters is usually not what some kind of authority, not even science or whatever you believe in, has laid down as truth but what YOU believe in and can make work in your own life. And this is exactly what Schiller did, by the way, using transcendental theory to draw out what he believed in, “proving” to himself and others that it can work.

And, in the same way, trying to draw out the truth I had always felt to be in his treatise, I have clarified MY thinking about the big question: what reading means to me, and why, exactly, it is so important to me. And even probably why reading and “serious” playing is so important in general, not for everybody, but for people who have learned to use it and benefit from it. As the most “vital” part – which is probably contained in EVERY act of reading, although usually unknown to us – is the part about linking the text to our own personal experience. (Which doesn’t only contain our “real” experience, by the way, but the “fictional” part as well, and, most important, wishes, dreams, what we imagine ourselves to be.) It is the most secret part, mostly subconscious, and it takes a deliberate act – which I consider to be the act of “serious” playing on its most basic level – to make it conscious and, in that way, make it work to improve our lives. Living in a time where everybody is obsessed with the concept of working out to improve themselves– or rather with having a bad conscience about not doing it! – it frightens me that nobody ever worries about improving their minds as well as their bodies. Not being concerned at all about WHO WE ARE, besides what we can do and what we look like.

And I have also clarified another issue which bothered me much more than I thought it should, but it has to do with why it is so important to think about who we are and what we want to be. It has always bothered me why I have been obsessed with acting and actors from the moment I discovered theatre. Which was even a long time before I “discovered” film - as I just remembered, talking about these things with my sister and realizing how many significant memories I have about going to the theater a long, long time ago. So much happened since then, and I very rarely saw “proper” acting then, by the way, but it has doubtless shaped my taste for what I like now, and what I think is great. But, somehow, I have always had a bit of a bad conscience about being so obsessed with it without seeing a real connection to my own life – quite as I have a vague dislike for people who are watching football religiously, as if it was the most important thing in the world, and have never kicked a ball. I know this sounds snobbish, and it is, but I am very much in favour of this kind of elitism, and I’ll try to explain why. There is certainly nothing wrong with “just” having fun, and maybe not even with becoming obsessed with something, but, unlike the first, the latter, in my opinion, requires a good reason. And, lacking that, I had always suspected I had “questionable” motives, like jealousy – for something I wished to be and couldn’t – or, of course, some kind of compensation for what I couldn’t have, in real life. And, somehow, I think, at least at my age, this is “disgraceful”. For example my sister has a much better motive, in my eyes, to love theatre in that way because she played herself at school and would have continued with it hadn’t “life” interfered with all kinds of more “serious” things. Whereas I am the sort of person who couldn’t act a single sentence convincingly, and has never enjoyed being LOOKED AT, in the first place – which in any case must be a chief motive for becoming an actor as it is crucial to be overly conscious of what you look like and what exactly “comes across” at any moment. Otherwise you will never be any good. So it couldn’t have been “jealousy” because, if I had been jealous of anybody, it wouldn’t have been an actress but a writer. As this is what I always wanted to do, still trying to do, of course. - And compensating for what you cannot have in real life is certainly a motive that can never be underestimated in dealing with “artificial reality”, and, in my case, can become very important for what I am getting “hooked on”. (As I am certainly my best evidence for what the “ladies queue meter” is about. And I definitely enjoy the moment they take off their shirt!) But, on the whole, “this” explains next to nothing about what content I like, or what kind of acting and actors I like.

And now I have come to know exactly what is at the core of it, and how it “links” to my own reality. As this act of “serious” playing I have written about is a conscious part of the acting process. And you can SEE it, in many cases, and it is exactly what I had always been looking for and which is even “the heart” of my Shakespeare experience, I think. Because the reason why Shakespeare is so thrilling for me is exactly this “interface” between reading and acting. The way I don’t really understand most of the content until I see it acted or put up on stage or on a screen. In many cases understanding Shakespeare’s text for me is the same as to imagine how I want to see it acted or how I would want to see this scene displayed on stage. The most striking example for me being the continually developing “production” of “Macbeth” in my own head.

And this is now the moment to lead over to what I am planning to do next. As what I have written until now appears to me like this very long treatise, or documentation, about this ongoing experience, which is now drawing to a close. And it is so interesting that when I returned recently to what I had written about its beginning – which is basically a very long “summary” of my experience of watching the “Hobbit” films – I have discovered that I understand so much better now what I have written then. And so the next thing I’ll do will be to make some kind of “appendix” to my “treatise” by editing what I have written about “The Hobbit” and put it into my blog. Because it contains almost everything that became important later in the bud. This war how these issues first came up, and this is of course important and fascinating for me, even though I have written most of it much better in the meantime and it means breaking my promise because there will be an awful lot about dwarves in it. But there will be a lot about actors as well, and about stories of course, and even a not quite unsubstantial bit about Shakespeare. And, what intrigued me most, a really interesting bit about what will probably be my next “big issue” which will be about fictional worlds. I was amazed for how long this has actually been “here”, lurking somewhere “in the shadows”.

What has finally brought it out in the open is fascinating as well and has still to do with the ongoing experience about “serious” playing. Because, as this experience is so vital to many people, we are in fact very inventive about producing and recreating it. Which means that it can be brought on by all kinds of “texts”, which work differently for different people. What I mean to say is that it doesn’t matter, basically, if it is Shakespeare or “Star Wars”, provided there is something that can create this experience. Of course for the person I am it matters that it is Shakespeare because I have never experienced this kind of “peak” before. But for other people, at other stages in their lives, a very different kind of text might provide the same type of experience. Or rather exactly the type of experience they need. Because a big part of this experience, bigger than we think, we are creating ourselves. But - great wizards that we all are! – we cannot create any experience out of nothing. So there is “matter”, of course, which probably gets us to become “hooked on” something, and which in my case I have identified as some kind of relevant “human content” without which I am usually not interested. But for other people there are certainly different things they like to play with. And - and there Schiller is right of course - there has to be some kind of strong “artificial” structure – for example written or acted – which reduces contingency, makes the matter more important to us than what just happens in the “real world”, and provides all kinds of hooks, and motives, and pleasures we become used to play with. But this, as I said, can be provided by very different types of texts and fictional worlds.

I had a great experience about this lately, concerning my seven year old nephew Noah. He, as obviously many children of his age just now, is very much into “Star Wars”. But as he is an extraordinarily imaginative child – even beyond what I myself have been at that age, I’d reckon – and had even found already a way of expressing and “acting out” his relationship with this world by extensive playing of course, but also by drawing extremely imaginative pictures, this became so intense that his parents forbade him to play “Star Wars”. A rather extreme measure, which I fully understood, in this case, and approved of, but especially because of what happened as a result. Here the benefit of what parents today so seldom do – take deliberate measures to educate their children – manifested itself in an unexpected way, you might say by actually backfiring. With the result that I now know somebody who is in possession of his own fictional world called “Suwa”, and pronounced “Tsoua”, complete with nineteen planets and a growing population of strange inhabitants. My personal favourites at the moment are ice-dragons and a bounty hunter (Kopfgeldjäger!?) who is exactly 0,99 centimetres “tall”. Even two weeks ago he told me the first episode, and I typed it on my netbook. That was exciting! And, as far as I can judge, for a seven year old who has no experience with writing as yet, it is an amazingly clear and comprehensive story. I am planning on “publishing” it in my blog, if I can get permission, as an introduction to my “chapter” on fictional worlds.

But my next blog will become my first “appendix” which will probably contain a few remarks about the new “Macbeth” film with Michael Fassbender and a longer part about “Hamlet”. Because, as I have just experienced, having an unexpectedly profound conversation about that play with the person who gave me the idea of writing this blog, this play is definitely “getting” me. I have even ordered Dover Wilson – which is a significant breach with my own “method” of reading. But our conversation has made me aware of the fact that I have even less of a clue what really HAPPENS in “Hamlet” than I thought. Though I already have a fairly good idea why this might be so interesting …