MUCH ADO ABOUT SHAKESPEARE
On his 443rd birthday, the Bard is still cashing in, says Stanley Borg as he argues why the whole world remains Shakespeare's stage
When I was all side-parted hair, ruddy complexion and plastic spectacles that were so funny they read like bumper stickers, I was an altar boy. And come post-Easter week, I would accompany our parish priest on a home-blessing tour around the village. In every house, we would be greeted in a holy, yet eager manner and proceed with the prayers. Then we would be ushered in the brick and mortar equivalent of vermouth, that is the formal sitting room, and I would be given a biscuit to keep me quiet while the adults had their Lehen il-Parrocca say.
It was on such tours that I formulated the theory that any living room worth its damask drapes and plastic-covered sofas has a bookcase. And behind the glass, enjoying the full privilege of a top table seating, there would always be a copy of Shakespeare's Collected Works, revered, silent and probably never opened let alone read. It was the centre piece; the main actor in a comedy where people play the game of impersonating more intelligent people. And it was a sign that this family, despite probably being as well-read as a blind bat, recognised the value of belonging to the global brand that is Shakespeare.
World Book Day, which is celebrated annually on April 23, is a tap on the shoulder to remind us of the importance of literacy and the thrills that await us between book covers. And, given that traditionally, April 23 has always been accepted as Shakespeare's birthday, we are supposed to spare thoughts for this glover's son who walked where others feared to read and went on to become the greatest untouchable in life's curriculum.
But frankly, we do not need such reminders because almost 400 years after his death, Shakespeare is still a bestseller; every bookshop's navigator and the author and playwright whose works still bring drama, six senses of humour, lots of cleavage and essence to our existence. Costumes might have changed and nowadays, we carry mobiles round our waist rather than daggers. Still, Shakespeare's words, written when life was so much different, insist that life's dealings and the human condition remain unchanged.
When he died, Shakespeare was not the powerful name we speak in awe of today. In fact, he was buried in the cemetery of his native Stratford-upon-Avon. Fellow playwright Francis Beaumont, on the other hand, who also died in the spring of 1616, was laid to rest in the national shrine of Westminster Abbey, alongside Chaucer.
Of course, during his lifetime, Shakespeare was a popular playwright in Britain. Yet it was only six years after his death that Shakespeare's reputation started to grow, thanks to the spread of the printed word. When Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, which is known as the First Folio and which was put together by Henry Condell and John Heminges, actors and Shakespeare's friends, hit the shelves, it was an immediate success, despite its steep price of 20 shillings, which at the time could buy you some 100 loaves of bread. The editors' invitation, in the introduction, for readers to "Whatever you do, buy," paid off. And Shakespeare's portrait, reproduced on the title page, was on its way to launching a thousand books and becoming the symbol of artistic genius.
The availability of the Folio, a copy of which sold last year for £2.5 million by auction, pushed Shakespeare ahead in his race against contemporary playwrights. Whereas Ben Jonson's collected works only got a single reprint after his death, Shakespeare's Folio was reprinted three times before the end of the 17th century. His flame was also fuelled by authors, actors and the first biographies that were starting to appear. Dryden, for instance, wrote that Shakespeare "needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature," while Thomas Betterton, one of the great actors of the 17th century, had enormous success playing Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear, Othello and Timon of Athens, proving that the most rewarding roles were the Shakespearean ones.
Shakespeare's journey towards becoming a global literary icon moved in parallel to Britain's ascent as a military power. If Britain was to be considered a modern state, the Rome of the 18th century, then it had to have a canon of great literature. Which is how Shakespeare became Britain's national poet, and his published words started being taken around the world by England's gift-bearing emissaries and travelling noblemen.
Thus Shakespeare became what in his days would be called a "get penny", that is, a sure-fire seller. His plays are performed worldwide during dedicated Shakespeare festivals and have been translated into more than 70 languages, including Klingon, the fictional language from Star Trek, and thanks to Alfred Palma, into Maltese. And for every play, there are volumes of crit, guides, class notes and interpretative studies by schools of all literary theory. But not only. Shakespeare continues to be an inspiration for such books as Betty Zyvatkauskas's Eating Shakespeare, which is a collection of recipes drawn from books contemporary to Shakespeare, and Will and Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life, Dominic Dromgoole's memoir as artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe.
Shakespeare is also a strong box-office earner, with over 600 films in the past century having been inspired or based on his plays. Laurence Olivier's Henry V was groundbreaking, as was 1948's Hamlet, for which Olivier became the first actor to direct himself to a best-actor Oscar. Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo & Juliet pulled in $135 million from the MTV generation while Shakespeare in Love picked up seven Oscars in 1998.
Yet the Shakespeare industry goes beyond bookshops or the theatre. In fact, he is one of Britain's most successful exports, bringing in over 700,000 tourists a year to Stratford-upon-Avon. These spend more than £150 million on anything that enhances the Shakespeare experience, from fridge magnets and letter-writing sets to Shakespeare-shaped cookies and a bite at the Food of Love café.
The reason why Shakespeare sells, and sells well, is not because of any marketing ploy but simply because of his work. It is Shakespeare's plays with their poetic invention and universal themes that give the Bard enduring appeal. It is his complex characters; the malcontents, tyrants, lovers and comic delighters in life that pull the crowds. It is the wit, rhythm and performability of his lines that pack theatres or give solitary pleasures to readers worldwide. Above all, it is Shakespeare's mastery of the language, dynamic, memorable and inventive, that continue to tell generations on what it means to be human.
20070421-lifestyle--shakespeare2.jpgPlaying with the Bard
Shakespeare's women are among his most powerful characters. Despite women's low position in society and the fact that, according to the convention of theatre in those days, female parts were played by young men, Shakespeare gives his women the mental agility and freedom that helped elevate the female sex to the position it deserves.
Coryse Borg, who has played a number of characters in Shakespeare's plays, including Celia in As You Like It, Katarina in The Taming of the Shrew and Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, says that Shakespeare's words roll off the tongue beautifully, and are almost magical.
"My love affair with Shakespeare began when I read Romeo and Juliet when I was 14 years old," she says. "To me, the plot, the characters, the words were just beautiful. And of course, at that age, the idea of doomed love was the stuff of my fantasies."
"Since then, I have read all the plays and enjoyed the relevance that the themes in Shakespeare's plays, including love, hate, marriage, jealousy, avarice and racism, have. However, Romeo and Juliet, Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream, remain my absolute favourites. Years ago, I was even lucky enough to land the part of Hermia in MADC's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which MADC are putting up again this year."
"I have taken part in both traditional and modern adaptations of Shakespeare's plays. Performing in traditional costume is fun for the actors and is what most people expect. Shakespeare in a modern setting gives the play a new dimension and possibly makes it more accessible to a contemporary audience. For instance, last year's performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor eschewed the traditional setting, having been set in a holiday camp in the 1960s. It was a brilliant idea by director Chris Gatt. We even had a live band and a pool on stage. It took the play to a whole new level, and confirmed that there is nothing like performing Shakespeare on stage. It is fantastic, and always a privilege."
World Book Day
In choosing April 23 as World Book and Copyright Day, Unesco drew inspiration from a Catalan tradition. On this day in Catalonia, numerous book fairs and street festivals are held and customers are offered a rose with every book they buy. By celebrating this day throughout the world, Unesco seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright. April 23 also marks the birth or death of writers the likes of Cervantes, de la Vega, Nabokov and Shakespeare.
It was on such tours that I formulated the theory that any living room worth its damask drapes and plastic-covered sofas has a bookcase. And behind the glass, enjoying the full privilege of a top table seating, there would always be a copy of Shakespeare's Collected Works, revered, silent and probably never opened let alone read. It was the centre piece; the main actor in a comedy where people play the game of impersonating more intelligent people. And it was a sign that this family, despite probably being as well-read as a blind bat, recognised the value of belonging to the global brand that is Shakespeare.
World Book Day, which is celebrated annually on April 23, is a tap on the shoulder to remind us of the importance of literacy and the thrills that await us between book covers. And, given that traditionally, April 23 has always been accepted as Shakespeare's birthday, we are supposed to spare thoughts for this glover's son who walked where others feared to read and went on to become the greatest untouchable in life's curriculum.
But frankly, we do not need such reminders because almost 400 years after his death, Shakespeare is still a bestseller; every bookshop's navigator and the author and playwright whose works still bring drama, six senses of humour, lots of cleavage and essence to our existence. Costumes might have changed and nowadays, we carry mobiles round our waist rather than daggers. Still, Shakespeare's words, written when life was so much different, insist that life's dealings and the human condition remain unchanged.
When he died, Shakespeare was not the powerful name we speak in awe of today. In fact, he was buried in the cemetery of his native Stratford-upon-Avon. Fellow playwright Francis Beaumont, on the other hand, who also died in the spring of 1616, was laid to rest in the national shrine of Westminster Abbey, alongside Chaucer.
Of course, during his lifetime, Shakespeare was a popular playwright in Britain. Yet it was only six years after his death that Shakespeare's reputation started to grow, thanks to the spread of the printed word. When Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, which is known as the First Folio and which was put together by Henry Condell and John Heminges, actors and Shakespeare's friends, hit the shelves, it was an immediate success, despite its steep price of 20 shillings, which at the time could buy you some 100 loaves of bread. The editors' invitation, in the introduction, for readers to "Whatever you do, buy," paid off. And Shakespeare's portrait, reproduced on the title page, was on its way to launching a thousand books and becoming the symbol of artistic genius.
The availability of the Folio, a copy of which sold last year for £2.5 million by auction, pushed Shakespeare ahead in his race against contemporary playwrights. Whereas Ben Jonson's collected works only got a single reprint after his death, Shakespeare's Folio was reprinted three times before the end of the 17th century. His flame was also fuelled by authors, actors and the first biographies that were starting to appear. Dryden, for instance, wrote that Shakespeare "needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature," while Thomas Betterton, one of the great actors of the 17th century, had enormous success playing Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear, Othello and Timon of Athens, proving that the most rewarding roles were the Shakespearean ones.
Shakespeare's journey towards becoming a global literary icon moved in parallel to Britain's ascent as a military power. If Britain was to be considered a modern state, the Rome of the 18th century, then it had to have a canon of great literature. Which is how Shakespeare became Britain's national poet, and his published words started being taken around the world by England's gift-bearing emissaries and travelling noblemen.
Thus Shakespeare became what in his days would be called a "get penny", that is, a sure-fire seller. His plays are performed worldwide during dedicated Shakespeare festivals and have been translated into more than 70 languages, including Klingon, the fictional language from Star Trek, and thanks to Alfred Palma, into Maltese. And for every play, there are volumes of crit, guides, class notes and interpretative studies by schools of all literary theory. But not only. Shakespeare continues to be an inspiration for such books as Betty Zyvatkauskas's Eating Shakespeare, which is a collection of recipes drawn from books contemporary to Shakespeare, and Will and Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life, Dominic Dromgoole's memoir as artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe.
Shakespeare is also a strong box-office earner, with over 600 films in the past century having been inspired or based on his plays. Laurence Olivier's Henry V was groundbreaking, as was 1948's Hamlet, for which Olivier became the first actor to direct himself to a best-actor Oscar. Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo & Juliet pulled in $135 million from the MTV generation while Shakespeare in Love picked up seven Oscars in 1998.
Yet the Shakespeare industry goes beyond bookshops or the theatre. In fact, he is one of Britain's most successful exports, bringing in over 700,000 tourists a year to Stratford-upon-Avon. These spend more than £150 million on anything that enhances the Shakespeare experience, from fridge magnets and letter-writing sets to Shakespeare-shaped cookies and a bite at the Food of Love café.
The reason why Shakespeare sells, and sells well, is not because of any marketing ploy but simply because of his work. It is Shakespeare's plays with their poetic invention and universal themes that give the Bard enduring appeal. It is his complex characters; the malcontents, tyrants, lovers and comic delighters in life that pull the crowds. It is the wit, rhythm and performability of his lines that pack theatres or give solitary pleasures to readers worldwide. Above all, it is Shakespeare's mastery of the language, dynamic, memorable and inventive, that continue to tell generations on what it means to be human.
20070421-lifestyle--shakespeare2.jpgPlaying with the Bard
Shakespeare's women are among his most powerful characters. Despite women's low position in society and the fact that, according to the convention of theatre in those days, female parts were played by young men, Shakespeare gives his women the mental agility and freedom that helped elevate the female sex to the position it deserves.
Coryse Borg, who has played a number of characters in Shakespeare's plays, including Celia in As You Like It, Katarina in The Taming of the Shrew and Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, says that Shakespeare's words roll off the tongue beautifully, and are almost magical.
"My love affair with Shakespeare began when I read Romeo and Juliet when I was 14 years old," she says. "To me, the plot, the characters, the words were just beautiful. And of course, at that age, the idea of doomed love was the stuff of my fantasies."
"Since then, I have read all the plays and enjoyed the relevance that the themes in Shakespeare's plays, including love, hate, marriage, jealousy, avarice and racism, have. However, Romeo and Juliet, Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream, remain my absolute favourites. Years ago, I was even lucky enough to land the part of Hermia in MADC's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which MADC are putting up again this year."
"I have taken part in both traditional and modern adaptations of Shakespeare's plays. Performing in traditional costume is fun for the actors and is what most people expect. Shakespeare in a modern setting gives the play a new dimension and possibly makes it more accessible to a contemporary audience. For instance, last year's performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor eschewed the traditional setting, having been set in a holiday camp in the 1960s. It was a brilliant idea by director Chris Gatt. We even had a live band and a pool on stage. It took the play to a whole new level, and confirmed that there is nothing like performing Shakespeare on stage. It is fantastic, and always a privilege."
World Book Day
In choosing April 23 as World Book and Copyright Day, Unesco drew inspiration from a Catalan tradition. On this day in Catalonia, numerous book fairs and street festivals are held and customers are offered a rose with every book they buy. By celebrating this day throughout the world, Unesco seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright. April 23 also marks the birth or death of writers the likes of Cervantes, de la Vega, Nabokov and Shakespeare.