Reading Shakespeare – an extra dimension and clarity to my life

 

Before I come to what is probably the best thing I have ever heard anybody say – and what, regrettably, feels as if I had reached the end of my blog! – I have to make an addition to my last post about the gratification great actors get out of their art. Regrettably so as well – but, as Goethe said, where there is a lot of light there is always a deep shadow. There IS a downside – APART from permanently dealing with fear and not knowing half your life if you will ever have a career. When I found this quote by Richard Armitage, I realized that it was something I knew already but always kind of hoped that it wasn’t true. It was in an interview he gave the Sunday Times in April 2006, two years after success “struck” for the first time with “North and South” which suddenly made him famous. There he answered the question if he had any regrets about becoming an actor with uncompromising – and, as usual, unsurpassed – clarity:

 

“I regret it a lot. And I don’t know why because when it’s good, it’s great. But it can take its toll on your emotions. You can spend a bit of yourself if you give yourself to a character. At the end of a job you have to remind yourself who and what you are.” 

 😮 !!!

(There is nothing can be added to this! Except, maybe: If you have “made it” and are still “out there” at almost fifty you would have become better dealing with it. I think there is evidence, in his case.)

 

                                                                                         ***

 

As a closure to my excursion into acting, I am pleased to come to what is uncontestedly a treat for every actor, though - uncontestedly as well - a great challenge and responsibility: PLAYING SHAKESPEARE.

 

“There is no other writer that demands so much.”

 

No other writer, in Tom Hiddleston’s opinion, who confronts the actor with such a COMPLEX challenge. On top of managing the text you have to figure out how to honour the spirit of Shakespeare and the complexity of the character. But, in his case, it always turned out as this great treat:

 

“The privilege and challenge of performing Shakespeare is having to ALIGN ONE’S MIND WITH HIS’. The profundity and breadth of his mind, the things he was able to understand, requires you to think about life in a very profound way. Every time I have done a Shakespeare part THERE IS AN EXTRA DIMENSION AND CLARITY TO MY LIFE AT THAT TIME.”

 

When I heard this last sentence, it just struck me: YESSS! THAT IS IT!!! That is exactly what happens to me when I am READING Shakespeare. It is just the best description ever of the state I am in while I am dealing with his stuff.

 

And it never comes cheap either. There is this challenge still of even UNDERSTANDING the text. I might not always realise it, but I think in every play I read and don’t know as well as I came to know “Richard III” and “Macbeth”, just because they are my favourite plays and I read them time and again, there are any number of sentences or whole passages about which I haven’t got a clue what they mean. Some of them even are the ones that stayed with me – like these stones that look like round pebbles but have enclaves of crystal, which I used to buy but never opened. One day, maybe, their secret of meaning will be revealed to me, as it has happened a few times already. One of my favourite bits from Shakespeare, for example, is what Mercutio says, in “Romeo and Juliet”, quite out of the blue:

 

“I talk of dreams which are the children of an idle brain begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind …”

 

I have not the faintest idea what he is referring to exactly, or where this sudden outburst of poetry might come from. But I love it!

 

Of course, being an actor playing a major role in Shakespeare, this extra dimension and clarity will automatically come into your life as this will BECOME your life for some time and you are COMPELLED to understand. Unlike the great realistic stuff I was just dealing with, in “Shakespeare” – though it might get quite naturalistic as well in its own way - I don’t get drawn in and entertained by an incredible amount of seemingly inconsequential detail. It’s actually a diversion and a relief to lose oneself pleasantly in beautiful or interestingly upsetting moments and get off the jarring predicament. Somehow, reading Shakespeare doesn’t allow this. I am COMPELLED and challenged not to get sidetracked but to align my mind with his’ – otherwise it doesn’t really work. But WHEN it works, just as by magic, nothing – in real life or outside it - appears quite as important. This “absoluteness” might be the reason why Shakespeare provides guidance for actors even when they are working on something quite different. And why Shakespeare actually became therapeutic in my case as this kind of utter concentration and focussing on what I make of the text automatically gives structure to my life. Unlike other kinds of great text, which are less “binding”, “Shakespeare” provides fetters which I am glad to get into. Usually I am very reluctant of taking on any fetters whatsoever but, in this case, the benefit is too apparent.  I was aware of this, but now I am able to SAY what they are for. I would do almost anything short of actual S&M to procure this addition to my life!

 

There already WAS this light and clarity in my life when I was “brought back” to Shakespeare. And if you suddenly stand IN the light, stepping out of your own shadow, you don’t know where it comes from and what it is. I just knew – if I had prayed – that this would have been the answer to my prayers, and that I had to find a way to remain in it. It was just my good fortune that I got the idea that it might be reading Shakespeare. In the beginning mostly as a kind of mental exercise to be able to stay “in” something long enough to explore this newfound dimension and clarity. Now I believe I can walk a few steps on my own in the light, but at the time I just didn’t know how. There isn’t a lot of “Shakespeare” in my life right now, but I wouldn’t dream of shedding my “prop” entirely.

 

A big part of my blog has been about this experience – but now Tom Hiddleston has provided the WORDS. I feel that my initial question “Why Shakespeare?” finally got answered to my satisfaction, and therefore it feels as if I had indeed reached the end of my blog. Especially as there has been an almost uncanny increase in clarity to my inner life also in other respects. So much light even that my world now appears a bit bleak, but on the whole  – to my surprise! – I find that clarity NEVER hurts.

 

I suppose, though, there will always be things I will like – and need – to look into. There is still a lot of unfinished business - and of course there can be no end to “Shakespeare”! This experience will always go on. Already the next question presents itself as a matter of course:

 

WHAT IS IT EXACTLY that makes Shakespeare so special? Why does what I just described only happen in “Shakespeare”?

 

(I have probably explained this a few times already, but the repetition doesn’t hurt: When I put Shakespeare into quotation marks it indicates the fictional world I am referring to, not its author.)

 

At the moment I have a crude theory based on what I recently observed about realism. Why I “believe” Shakespeare – why I have come to accept his authority ABOVE MY OWN, which is necessary to impose his structure and clarity on my life! – has nothing to do with his realism. This realism – the attention to detail - is brought to “Shakespeare” mostly by the actors who have to make their characters realistic and believable. It is NOT an integral part of “Shakespeare” – which, in my opinion, even makes this fictional universe so historically flexible and readily adaptable. Everybody can always bring their own naturalism and environment to it, as people have probably done at all times. But it never really CHANGES “Shakespeare”. We find something so necessary and universal there, the kind of content people have been looking for at all times.

 

I am always careful to hold up, though, that the plays were not WRITTEN to provide some kind of timeless truth and universal overview of the human stuff IN THE FIRST PLACE. This is probably more of a “side-effect” of making the event of going to the theatre so memorable that people would want to go and see the next “Shakespeare” as well. The first reason to go to the theatre was – and is! – that it provides entertainment. Pageants and fights, the striking appearance and performance of the actors, and an intriguing story, were and are the main requirements. But this superficial entertainment value is not sustainable. To compete with other writers doing the same thing, you have to KEEP people entertained. And this means that you have to make your own stuff stand out, to feed people what they HAVEN’T tasted yet, what they don’t expect, what intrigues them, and what moves their hearts. And, in this respect, Shakespeare was just the best. (That’s why I never really believe “the times” - or the people - are as bad as they obviously are when I see great series teeming with the “human stuff” spring up like mushrooms. Obviously there is this universal need to deal with it in a way that doesn’t insult our intelligence and honours our feelings.)

 

So, all entertainment has to get us MOVED permanently, or else we’ll drop out. Especially in our day and age there is so much else to do online. Therefore there has to be this dramatic MOVEMENT which, in “Shakespeare”, appears to me to be a kind of circling around the TRUTH, relentlessly getting closer to it, making it ever more “like it”. And this is something we “automatically” join in when we follow through – actors as well as members of the audience. I know this is a rather bloodless description, but at the moment I cannot afford the time and energy it would take to describe myself on the hunt for “right versus wrong” in “The Merchant of Venice” (which is somewhere in my blog) or to pursue the story how I became a “Yorkist” – a rather ridiculous “fall-out” of reading Shakespeare which I recently discovered to my amusement. What business do I have to become a Yorkist or a Lancastrian, being not even English?! But I did nonetheless - ultimately so when I discovered what Shakespeare has ACTUALLY written on the matter. On the surface it is often obvious which side Shakespeare was on – and which side we should be on, for that matter! – but, digging deep enough, the truth will always “fall out”. It appears as if he just couldn’t help himself but had to dig deeper until he hit rock bottom. Even though I know that bullshit is vitally important, and life wouldn’t run smoothly without it, I actively take care to produce as little of it as possible. My deepest desire seems to be to live in a non-bullshit world, which – weirdly! - I mostly find in fiction. That’s why I love Austen and Shakespeare. They seem to cut through it direct. And Shakespeare appears to come closest. Considering my recent experience with my own life, I tend to believe that is because we always kind of know the truth but often don’t want to look at it as we fear it will be disagreeable. But when it finally comes out it is rather a RELIEF. Apparently I am convinced that the truth – per definition! - is something like our “natural” state, and that lying therefore must always feel “unreal” and uncomfortable. I suppose most people do, but quite often LIVING a lie is just easier whereas living the truth would take an effort. Therefore I think that this MOVING TOWARDS THE TRUTH as a pervasive text vortex in “Shakespeare” might be the innermost reason for the “added dimension and clarity”, at least in my case.

An advanced seminar on the art of acting, part three: “Being truthful in imaginary circumstances”

  

What resonated most with me of everything Tom Hiddleston said about acting, its objective, and his ongoing fascination with it, was what he said about the actor’s relationship with the audience. That is because it has to do with my own interest in reading, not as an act of determining meaning to establish “political” dominance but as an active power we develop in our lives to improve ourselves and them through communication. For him -  as, I’d say, a typical British actor in this respect - the territory where actor and audience meet, and where these encounters can suddenly become so intense, is always what I use to call the “human stuff”. In his opinion, the actors’ job is “to represent and investigate human reality”, which is also their joy and their privilege: “You want to be vulnerable and flawed and courageous …”.

 

The opportunities to be these things in real life are scarce, and, if they come, not exactly gratifying. And, of course, some things we never get the opportunity to execute and examine except under life-threatening circumstances or in peril of grave censure. Nonetheless we want – and need! – to examine them. At least I felt already during my sheltered childhood that it isn’t “true” life if I left all this out. There is a lot of the human stuff that somehow is “in” our lives but never “gets out”. Or which is really difficult to address with other people. But we want and need to share these things nonetheless. As Tom Hiddleston said:

 

“That’s why we go to the theatre and to the cinema: WE NEED TO CONNECT WITH EACH OTHER. (…) And we all leave with a shared understanding of what we know to be true about life.”

 

What beautiful words!!! I don’t think it could be expressed any better than this. It is, in my opinion, where the great and, in fact, vital responsibility of actors is located. And it might be the reason why acting in the theatre is still considered to be special - as the original and “genuine” form of acting - which is taken from there onto sets, into films and TV: that – from the actor’s perspective – the audience is there with them. As – from “our” perspective – the actors and their characters are there with us, in the same place at the same time.

 

And I mean “vital” still in a different sense than ANY cultural activity might be vital. I always felt that the work of great actors with the capability of investigating these truths from “within” and help them get out in the way they do cannot be overrated. I didn’t think, though, that they were themselves entirely conscious of it. From what Tom Hiddleston said about his own motivation for acting - and “live-changing” experiences with other actors' performances - I got the impression that they might be extremely conscious of it. Not just of the responsibility it contains but also of the great PRIVILEGE of being in a position to offer what NOBODY ELSE can offer:

 

“You are preparing to GIVE a part of yourself that is a very private part of yourself (…) because it is the right part of you that fits him or her for that moment. (…) The actors are lending their souls to this story to create an experience of meaning for all of us.”

 

Again – this couldn’t possibly be expressed any better than this! Nobody could make ME understand the extreme GRATITUDE I feel for them, doing something like this “for me”, any better. This is also the reason I constantly get into a certain form of overrating. There are certainly lots of occasions where it doesn’t take much work or art or effort on the part of the actor to create this kind of situation where we can be “in it” TOGETHER. To find the right part of yourself and show it. But this is not even the point. In my opinion, what separates a great actor from somebody who - for external reasons like good looks, physical prowess, and confidence - has become famous and successful is that I see proof that they are conscious of this part in producing the text, that they like their responsibility and are prepared to work hard for it. In fact, the more I see them taking this seriously and being prepared to sacrifice for it, the more impressed I get – and CONVINCED that their work will result in the kind of moments of truth I seek. Not least because actors I like appear to feel the same about it. Easy success is great, of course, but it also feels faintly suspicious. The spirit is always to be PREPARED to have to give everything you have.

 

(Not so strangely, maybe, this appears to be how I feel about life in general. It is great when everything runs smoothly, but never for a second take this for granted! When shit happens, never complain or despair but grit your teeth and do whatever it takes!)

 

The reason why I value this activity so highly is that I experience how it DIRECTLY benefits ME. There is nothing, in my experience, as healing as the feeling of sharing part of my own truth with another human being. It may happen that I feel so connected in real life when I finally get round to talking with somebody about THEMSELVES - not the weather, corona, the job, or the series we are just watching - but it is seldom as perfect and gratifying as it is when I am reading. And even there is a world of a difference still when somebody is “interpreting” for me in such a competent manner, helping me to make the experience MORE TRUTHFUL. My most recent example: Listening to “David Copperfield” read by Richard Armitage makes me aware how completely I can share the human stuff in this novel following his vivid and compassionate reading, and how much more tedious and less efficient this would have been just reading it by myself. (And – as I am not really into Dickens myself – there is no way I would have realized how FUNNY it is! Genuinely “humanely” funny – without exposing the characters to ridicule.)

 

Quite often it probably isn’t such a big thing to create this kind of situation. Mostly just me being ready for it. Nonetheless the actor takes the primary responsibility for its TRUTHFULNESS. And there are these cases where this special relationship really is a big thing. They are, of course, where there is most gratification for actors through their work. It is also a kind of relationship that only actors can have in this way and that therefore must appear strange to “mere mortals”.

 

I just had the opportunity to witness one of these relationships – though, of course, only from the outside, but, I believe, as closely and comprehensively as it gets. That was when – on “anniversary weekend” – I finally got round to listening to the interview Richard Armitage gave about “The Crucible” on the stage of the Old Vic during the time when they were still playing(, which is also on “Digital Theatre”.) Having watched the production the night before, the first thing that was so obvious was how the real person of the actor was altered by the character he was playing. This was clearly about half Richard Armitage – mostly in his professional capacity talking about John Proctor and, of course, a little as the private person having feelings and personal experience about it to share – and half John Proctor, his physicality and state of mind influencing the way of talking, thinking, feeling, being “himself” … I have seen something like this quite a few times – conveying the impression of actors as some kind of chameleon people: never quite the same when you “meet” them again – but never like this! He had said before that he knew that playing John Proctor would change him as a person, and I believed him because my first impression seeing him in the cinema as this character had been about how much he had GROWN in confidence. But I never quite understood what he meant – until the interview. I couldn’t have, as he himself said he wouldn’t know until all this was over. BUT, as he said, there was SOMETHING. He had realized that a lot of John Proctor was about things he was afraid of about himself, and already he wasn’t afraid anymore!

 

(Not for the first time I was pleasantly shocked. Not just because this was what I had SEEN. Of course this has been how I came to take a personal interest in him because, in this respect, I am exactly the same. I relish to say this kind of personal things to other people – and would probably do so in public if there was an occasion – because this is exactly the kind of thing I can talk about TRUTHFULLY and have therefore any business to talk about. And wouldn’t give a damn about anybody judging me, knowing that I have spoken the truth!)

 

Apart from this, I was impressed with the consciously and carefully managed relationship with his character whom he thanked every night for having been there. (Understandably – because the special worst nightmare for an actor must be the character suddenly losing interest and terminating the relationship BEFORE the show closes! Like in real life: being polite and grateful certainly never hurts. 😉) He needed this moment of expressly distancing himself from the character and getting back to being himself, but couldn’t “put him to bed” entirely to get on with his own life because he knew he would need him the next day.

 

When I wrote my “fan fiction” and “was” Balin, I got used to Balin reliably showing up whenever I found the time to write. Still, I knew what a privilege that was. I was certainly grateful! And these relationships between fictional characters and real people are a source of endless fascination for me. But even though the relationship with my narrator got unexpectedly intimate, there is still a considerable difference in “real life quality” between writing “inside” a character and being this character in the way great actors can be. At least in my experience, “written” characters do stay within the text.

 

I am really pleased to have been able to finish this seminar on acting and officially thank Tom Hiddleston for the great input! But the best thing he said, and the most useful for me, I saved for last. It was how he described his relationship with Shakespeare. Obviously, he is the same kind of “real life philosopher” I am – who likes to look kind of systematically at what is going on inside himself - just less verbose and more efficient. I think he figured out what makes Shakespeare so special for so many people. And this I plan to write about in my next post – getting back to SHAKESPEARE at last! (One of the many things I have been looking forward to for a long time …)