The Big Question, part 2: about reading Shakespeare

One of the big questions that guided me through my blog and kept it running is a very short one: WHY “SHAKESPEARE”?

(If anyone is actually reading this they might be confused about the quotation marks, but I always use them to indicate clearly that I am not speaking about the person but the “world” created by their writing. (Realizing that there is no getting away from actually writing the equivalent of this doctoral thesis I am aware that I should be more thorough about these things. So there have to be footnotes. But I hate footnotes – though I finally got the hang of them reading Tolkien who packed a lot of valuable information into footnotes. And I think I used them in my master thesis to store away all the ironic and critical stuff, which won’t be necessary here. There is no way I am going to use footnotes in my blog, and there will probably be this maze of brackets I am hating already …))

There might even be a very short answer to the short question: BECAUSE IT MAKES ME BETTER. And this is not an opinion but a fact because reading Shakespeare was THE ONLY THING that could make me better when things inside me weren’t looking so good. I knew that for that special predicament there would be nobody who could help me. There wouldn’t even be a single person in the world who would understand me, but I knew that I had to do something about it because, if I didn’t, I would have failed doing the only important thing I did in my life, squandering the greatest gift I ever got. Back then, it appeared totally hopeless because I knew that the experience could not be repeated or prolonged, it had to be CHANGED. And I didn’t have a single clue how to do this.

Looking back I know that it wasn’t ENTIRELY hopeless because I trusted in my skill in self-medication. This is actually something I have been amazingly good at all my life, even on a physical level. But on a psychological level as well, both because, unlike most people, I know myself very well. (In the present state, I think, I would actually see MYSELF in the magic mirror at Hogwarts …) So I notice when bad things happen with me very early on, and take them seriously, which many people don’t before it is too late for self-administered therapy. I had massive help, though, or luck, because I wouldn’t have hit on a therapy on my own. But the art of self-medication lies in the intuition to discern what things, of all the stuff that “chance” throws in your way, are the ones that will help you. I had a strong feeling that “Shakespeare” might be one of them, and I approached it tentatively and with great care. I couldn’t have dreamt of the success, though, because I experienced something I never have before. It was an EQUIVALENT of writing - and loving, by the way – but it was very different because it was READING. Even though reading has always been so important I still underestimated its potential. It was as if I was reading FULLY CONSCIOUSLY for the first time in my life.

Now the BIG QUESTION is, of course: Why? Why “Shakespeare”? Why can “Shakespeare” do something to me that no other kind of reading has ever achieved? I never really believed I would answer this question, and was perfectly fine with it, because I knew it to be the same kind of question as the one why it is THIS PERSON that fits so exactly everything that “we” might ever have expected any person to be that we HAVE to fall in love with them. This question might be answered IN THE END, but not before there is a long line of proofs leading to the final conclusion. Nonetheless, we know FROM THE BEGINNING that we are making the right choice. (I just cracked the ending of “The Crucible” by the way …) Of course I couldn’t have ANSWERED the question in the beginning. I needed a lot of PRACTICE to develop a theory.

“In the end”, after having gone through all this, it is a disappointingly short answer. I suppose Richard Armitage felt really good playing John Proctor LIKE opera, feeling that it was “AS BIG AS LEAR”. But in fact it is REALLY BAD STUFF he was dealing with, and it is vital to REALLY understand this for doing it right as well. Now I know that Arthur Miller isn’t Shakespeare, but the comparison, of course, is not just about quantity but about structure. To say that it is, basically, THE SAME THING. - I am glad that, in the case of “House of Cards”, reading the “histories” at the same time, I distinctly remember that it reminded me of “Shakespeare” before I heard anyone else mention it. I’d even go as far as to say that “Shakespeare” often emerges clearer through its impact on other texts and worlds than when it actually IS “Shakespeare” because the practice of playing and reading Shakespeare is so much “muddled” and complicated by questionable traditions and prejudices. And, even on the British stage, where a “direct” link to the world is obviously still there, there are so many considerations and doubts about what “we” are “allowed” to do with Shakespeare that it often becomes toil instead of play. Shakespeare acting will always be difficult, and wrought with failure and problems for actors, but having tried to solve these problems and finding THEIR OWN WAY through it, in my opinion has improved most British actors to the “gold standard” they acquire much more frequently than others. I already mentioned that I never liked Ian McKellen as much in any Shakespeare role as I liked him as Gandalf or Mr. Creakles. (I know, he wouldn’t like that!) And, generally, on the occasion of the Tolkien films, about the amount of “Shakespeare actors” casted there, I realized that, when somebody has worked his way through “Shakespeare”, it is comparatively easy to achieve the larger-than-life quality that these characters need to appear convincing. At least they will understand it, and find a way how to do it. (There are definitely other ways as well, to do it as convincingly. See Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn! But I think he needed a long “run-up” to get there.)

I think that the secret of “Shakespeare” is the SCOPE and POTENTIAL it provides for PLAYING with the BAD STUFF. Shakespeare, the author, was the person who obviously developed this kind of poetic activity to its MAXIMUM POTENTIAL. What he did is just so strong that the challenge often is too much for the stage – especially as it requires ALL THE ACTORS to play along on the same level. But if you can make the dynamics so strong that everybody is swallowed up in it I suppose it just begins to be “fun” instead of toil, it becomes JUST PLAYING. My stellar example for what “Shakespeare” might be like at its best is the recent “Titus Andronicus” by the Globe Theatre – which I have now on dvd. In my present experience – there are probably still half of the plays that I haven’t read! – “Titus Andronicus” is the play with the greatest quantity of bad stuff in it. Basically, just people tearing one another apart and doing the cruelest things to other people that can be imagined. Just killing is definitely not enough when it comes to retribution! - What the Globe has made of this string of abominations is one of the most entertaining and enjoyable performances I have ever seen on a stage. And, strangely, the cruelty and horror is NOT diminished by the playfulness. On the contrary, it is fully developed and kind of brought to life by it. I never understood THE POINT of the play until I saw this. Which doesn’t mean that there might actually be a point in showing all this. Just, while the play was on, I understood WHY things are happening in this way. The inner logic of the play got “released” on me. And this is what I often noticed happens when I can SEE the playing. For example, recently seeing “Richard III” with Ralph Fiennes which, from the beginning, was so funny that it beat most of the comedies I have seen. And the humour brought out the inner logic so much more clearly.

But I know that this wouldn’t have worked if the “bad stuff” hadn’t been equally strong. I noticed, and appreciated from the beginning that Ralph Fiennes embraced the “bad” inside this character in a way I have rarely seen. I think it is the ultimately contemporary way to play a vice character, kind of lovingly, making yourself suffer. And I should have known that he would be perfect for the job because HE DOES THAT. It might even have been my unconscious reason for keeping my distance, not liking him as much as I should have done. (Well, now I do! He even completely erased my eternal regret of not having seen Kevin Spacey play Richard.) And the same with Lucian Msamati. Of course he played Iago beautifully, but Iago is almost always played beautifully. I think Iago can even become a “trap” because the text is so beautiful and brilliant that it almost automatically “rubs off” on the character. My example for this is Kenneth Branagh playing Iago in the film with Lawrence Fishburne. At first I was pleased because he evidently loved the text at least as much as I did. Then I noticed something important was missing. There was great “Shakespeare”, no doubt, but there was no Iago. Lucian Msamati was the first Iago I saw who gave this character the humanity he needs to unfold his full potential. He showed us that Iago is NOT elegant and easy-going. What he did was showing us how DIFFICULT it actually is to BE Iago. He is one of these characters who couldn’t let go for the world. I could almost smell the sweat on him – I could see it anyway! I think, understanding and playing how tough Iago is made it EASIER for him to play this. And the “naturalistic” playing didn’t diminish the playfulness and brilliance contained in the text in the least. Somehow I could see the toil and harshness of it better on my little screen and was disappointed at first. But I remember my first impression about the supreme BEAUTY of his speaking and playing the text when it came back to me the other day relaxing in the gym after having worked out. (I suppose it was the audio. The sound on my computer in this case was even lower than usual whereas “Cinema” sound is usually very loud. I may have lost one of the most beautiful features of his Iago on dvd.) And this is also part of the great technique of Shakespeare’s playing with the bad stuff that the “naturalistic” cannot do any harm, on the contrary. It is really important that we understand that Iago DOESN’T FEEL GREAT doing all this. That he is fundamentally unhappy with his carrier, his marriage, basically everything. And – like most people - he doesn’t look for faults in himself. To be honest, he would be hard pressed to find them anywhere he could be expected to look because, from all we know about him, he is really smart and particularly good at everything he does. Lucian Msamati didn’t play him as a villain but as a stickler and perfectionist. The kind of person who is always there when you need them and is generally taken for granted. It is a very common predicament which everybody knows from real life, and the actor makes it very clear how uncomfortable it is to be in this place. But somebody like him will always strife to wriggle out of it.

And this is only the one part of what Shakespeare did, playing with the bad stuff. Setting up a vice character like this. To invite the actor that he may find and enjoy the hard path “into” him. (I usually dislike vice characters and find them boring, unless the actor takes up the challenge of playing with them, making something extra special of them. When this happens they become the most impressive characters on the screen, like the brilliant Sheriff of Nottingham by Alan Rickman in the stupid “Robin Hood” film with Kevin Costner, or the vicious French spy character Mark Strong played in the not so stupid “Robin Hood” film with Russell Crowe. (Of course he beat Russel Crowe in every respect, especially riding. I watched the whole thing once just in order to make sure that he did all that riding himself. As far as I could see, he did. I don’t even MENTION the acting!) Or Richard Armitage as the Red Dragon who just pushed “screen-acting” one step further than everything I had seen when he set up this character so impressively in his first episode WITHOUT a single line of text! I didn’t even NOTICE that he didn’t say anything the first time I saw it as everything he DID carried so much meaning.)

I think what is so special about Shakespeare’s technique – and the reason why these texts and characters can only come into their own on a stage – is this other thing I first noticed clearly seeing Lucian Msamati play Iago and which then completely “got” me seeing Ralph Fiennes as Richard. It is the potential and necessity created by the text to be played in a way that it has an immediate impact on the person playing. I suppose this is why it is called “play-acting”. Ideally, “Shakespeare” is pure PLAY-ACTING. There CANNOT be any Shakespeare line spoken properly without having an immediate effect on the person speaking it. And I even think this is the source of Shakespeare’s “naturalism” because this is as it IS SUPPOSED to be. ORIGINALLY, speaking wasn’t MEANT to be “just” talking. It is much MORE than that. I just found out WHY my favourite word of all times is the old Norse word “ráða”, and why I have so little patience for people just making conversation. The word “ráða” actually is one of these words that don’t translate, respectively translates into a hundred different meanings, because we have lost the concept. At first I loved it because, as these words do, it provided this kind of loophole into a forgotten world. Now I can see that there is something even more basic and “philosophical” at stake. In my opinion “ráða” is an amalgamation of THINKING about, respectively debating an idea (with yourself or others), DECIDING what to do, and actually DOING it. And these three in our experience completely separated concepts originally where thought AS ONE. And the structure of play-acting in “Shakespeare” is just this: PUTTING THEM TOGETHER again. It is probably what makes playing Shakespeare so difficult as well as useful for actors. And so ultimately rewarding. I know that it might even be the “healing” thing I experience reading his stuff because I just enjoy putting things together that shouldn’t be separated. I enjoy the world MAKING SENSE.

And it certainly isn’t a coincidence that – though my favourite play, for some reason I haven’t cracked already, will always be “Macbeth” – my absolute favourite TEXT in “Shakespeare” always has been Iago’s long speeches where he plots and develops strategies ON THE SPOT and releases them on his victims with such incredible psychological efficiency that it is rarely matched nowadays. And I think I could even EXPLAIN now why my absolute favourite bits from “House of Cards” are the very beginning when Frank Underwood kills the fatally injured dog, and the part where Claire Underwood gives “her” interview. They are just pure “Shakespeare” in a contemporary setting. And the point is of course the PLAYING with the bad stuff, not just SHOWING it at the height of grizzly naturalism today’s film industry can provide. (We don’t SEE the dog, by the way! Didn’t I say that I became rather fond of “Standards and Practices” …?)

I think what made reading Shakespeare such a stunning experience is that, as soon as I found out how to make it difficult for me – which was automatically effected by trying to REALLY understand the text – I got my reward. And I got more, recently, when I finally managed to memorize Iago’s text – which I didn’t think I could do. But I managed it, I think, because I love it so much. And this is why playing Iago must feel so good, of course, especially when you really understand him, when he really becomes TOO BAD. So it becomes EASIER, or even becomes finally possible, to play a Shakespeare character if you go about it the hard way. Seeing Lucian Msamati, through all the sweat and toil and fear even, all I saw was how rewarding and deeply satisfying the experience of being Iago must have been. And I remember now that I liked Joanna Vanderham’s Desdemona from the start even though I disliked her stilted style of acting. But I obviously saw that it was her way of “doing” Shakespeare, letting every sentence, or even every word, go through her and physically affect her. Though the ultimate revelation was Ralph Fiennes who exposed himself to the text as I have never seen before. He obviously perfected the art of letting the text play him, finally, I think, making it EASIER to get further than anyone I have ever seen with a Shakespeare character. Though it felt really painful it felt even more like PURE JOY. And there is probably still more depth in Richard Armitage’s experience of John Proctor being “as big as Lear” than I thought as he said that he still couldn’t say some of the sentences he had to say. Of course he could! But he knew that this attitude would create exactly the right way of doing it – CONVINCING HIMSELF ultimately how BIG these sentences are. The first thing I saw when he entered that stage, even before he said his first sentence, was how much he had GROWN as an actor. So, doing the ultimately rewarding thing FOR YOURSELF by making it AS DIFFICULT AS POSSIBLE is probably what I was after as well when I tackled Shakespeare again as a reader, and it was so successful because I finally knew what I have always wanted to do, even why I studied German literature back then: to learn how to get THE MOST out of a text. I always knew there was more than “that”. With some things, there will always be more.

My best proof that my theory about Shakespeare is “operative” is that I basically answered all the questions that nagged me about reading Shakespeare – besides other important questions I had about reading. For example why vice characters, like Iago or Richard, have always been my favourite. Why “Shakespeare” kind of happens for me only when I am digging up the “bad stuff”. When I have hit on tragedy. And I have probably answered my question about why I fall in love with certain actors as well because all the examples I came up with recently follow the same pattern. I always fall in love with them over the bad stuff.

I always thought Cate Blanchett was great, but I finally fell in love with her over “Blue Jasmine” – and then there came “Carol” on top of it (Bliss!) The same about Rosamund Pike playing Gudrun Brangwen or Kate Winslet playing April Wheeler in “Revolutionary Road”. There is a genuinely nauseating and disturbing quality in both of these characters that both actresses nailed to a degree that cannot be surpassed. I noticed that I fell in love with Christopher Eccleston years ago when I saw “Elizabeth”, and I didn’t know if this was because he is weirdly sexy in this role until I saw a lot of other stuff by him – especially his Ben Iago in this contemporary adaptation of “Othello”. It might have been the reason I NOTICED him, but Norfolk is certainly one of these Shakespearean characters, with zero scruples about what he does to achieve his ends. And I am convinced the singular precision and kind of instinctive understanding he applies to these multi-faceted characters became the reason he “stayed with me”. (I am still skeptical about him playing Macbeth, though, which I am determined to see next year, even if it means that I have to go to Stratford. I know what he does works great on the screen but on the stage he would have to be a lot “louder” than that.) And I just hit on another example for having fallen in love that is significant in this context. I always liked Gemma Jones when I saw her but I came to love her as Connie James in the “Spooks” where she turns out to be a Russian “mole”. As such, it is one of the less interesting bits, following this old-fashioned spy-story pattern, but the way she plays this ultimately viciously, and then kind of redeems herself in the end without a hint of the sentiment we usually see in men doing something like this, is legend! – And, to finally get back to Shakespeare: Of course I was just delighted with Simon Russell Beale’s smart shortcuts to the human abyss in “Lear” and “The Tempest” and his digging up the worst in Falstaff.

But answering interesting questions usually leads to new interesting questions. The next question is naturally why it has to be the bad stuff. Why playing with the bad stuff has this kind of impact on “us”. I have a feeling that the question is still far from being asked exactly enough to provide an answer. There is a short and pragmatic answer, though, that might lead to another string of questions. Basically, all our lives, even the particularly “good” and successful ones, are filled with bad stuff. “We” are just constantly walking away from it because we can’t deal with it. Playing with it might be a good technique to deal with it, to kind of break free of it – though, obviously, we don’t like playing with OUR OWN bad stuff. Shakespeare is great too because THE BARBARIANS might have raped girls and cut their tongues out. It is quite unlikely that this will happen to us. Playing with lying in hospital dying of cancer – which is likely to happen to us if we just live long enough for the cancer to catch up with us – is rather a difficult matter. And WE might enjoy seeing York and Lancaster tearing themselves apart over the “hollow crown”, but Queen Elizabeth I evidently wasn’t amused about kings being deposed on the stage. I still think that the answer somehow BEGINS with the bad stuff in our own lives that cannot be dealt with. But it is certainly a lot more complex than this.

So, there will probably be some more about the “bad stuff” in my next post – especially after having seen “Mother!” recently which provided me with some surprising “material” on this subject.