• How did the production make you feel?
• What is worth remembering about this production?
• How does this production speak to our own times?
• Why is your opinion valuable?
• Was there a moment that encapsulated this production for you?
• What difference would you like your review to make?22
If we go to see our next Shakespeare production bearing these questions in mind, then we will probably have a lot to talk about afterwards. But however we approach theatre reviewing, we need to take a deep breath and be brave. The cost of our ticket, a company’s reputation, and what we hear other people saying might distract us from forming our own opinion, but we owe it to each other to speak honestly about the Shakespeare we encounter in the theatre. Quite often, the most enjoyable productions are to be found on the amateur scene or by low-budget professional companies whose need to produce a particular play is undeniable and can be palpably felt. But wherever and however we encounter Shakespeare, as far as theatre reviewing and talking about productions are concerned, honesty is always the best policy. One of the final lines of King Lear provides the best touchstone or mantra I know for theatre criticism: ‘speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.’
In performance it can sometimes take only an apparently incidental moment, one phrase even, to make all the difference to our understanding. The novelist Margaret Drabble had the good fortune to go to school with Judi Dench whom she remembers playing Ariel in The Tempest:
Nearly sixty years later I can hear her voice, as Ariel describes the pitiable state of the bewitched and shipwrecked king and his followers, and assures her master Prospero that if he were to see them now he would pity them: ‘if you now beheld them, your affections / Would become tender’ (5.1.20–21). Prospero responds, ‘Dost thou think so spirit?’ (5.1.22) – to which she replies, ‘Mine would, sir, were I human’ (5.1.22–3). Judi Dench uttered that phrase, ‘were I human’, with such unearthly yearning that whole vistas of depth beyond depth in the meaning of the play opened before us. Such moments of revelation a truly fine performance can offer. They are worth as much as many pages of critical analysis. And Judi was only seventeen.23
Such can be the rewards of theatre-going, great acting and excellent writing. Encountering Shakespeare in performance can turn the plays we think we know inside out and reveal unsuspected treasures just below the surface. And it is always in the hope of such treasure that I go back to see the same plays time and again.
SPEAKING SHAKESPEARE
One way of encountering live Shakespeare without having to go to the theatre is to read it aloud. The Sonnets are a good place to start. Reading a single sonnet aloud well will take us close to Shakespeare’s language and lyricism. What we learn in miniature when speaking a sonnet, we can then apply to his larger body of work. Sonnets are often a favourite focus among voice coaches and directors working with actors.
What do you need to be mindful of before you start reading a Shakespeare sonnet? Well, for one thing, you don’t need to be able to act in order to render a good reading, since speaking a sonnet is not the same as performing it. Performance assumes a sense of characterisation and an emotional reality. Reading a sonnet is more about being hypersensitive to the language, image and, importantly, the sonnet’s sound.
It is a good idea to read a sonnet three times through before starting to converse with yourself or anyone else about it. Try whispering it first of all. This will immediately lift the words off the silent page and start to release their music. When we read a sonnet aloud, it is good to recall and to try to convey something of the sonnet’s initial intimacy. I once heard the actor Jeffrey Dench (brother of Judi Dench) remark that ‘however large the audience, a sonnet when read has always got to sound like pillow talk.’ We will almost certainly encounter difficulty on our first reading – a hard to understand image, phrase or word. But our first read-through might register the length of its lines, the sound of the rhymes, whether there are any repetitions, the shape of the sonnet, its conceit, and a sense of its journey. Try whispering Sonnet 73:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Now read it a second time at your usual, conversational volume. This should reveal more of what the sonnet requires us to visualise. In Sonnet 73, we are presented with ‘yellow leaves’, ‘boughs which shake against the cold’, ‘twilight’, the fading sunset, and ‘black night’. There are also a glowing fire, a ‘death-bed’ and ashes. We might notice any irregular line endings, or enjambments (when the sense flows over onto the next line, as in lines 2–3) that might make a special demand on where we can take a breath. And we might be struck by some of the vowel sounds, the internal word-music. There is a supreme example of this in Sonnet 73: ‘Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang’. The long, open vowels of this single line make it sound as though it were exploring the full range of notes available.
A third reading might notice the value of each of the three quatrains (the three lots of four lines up to line 12) and a sense of who is involved in the poem. Is there an intimate ‘thou’ or a more formal ‘you’? How does the speaker, the imaginary ‘I’ of the poem, position him or herself in relation to the addressee, and what might this convey about the personalities involved? After a third reading, the overall meaning, tone and effect of the sonnet may well be making itself palpably felt to us.
What should we pay attention to in trying to speak a sonnet well? Here are six things to bear in mind.
First, use your own voice. Do not try to put on a poetic or Shakespearian voice, or a particular kind of accent. Shakespeare comes most vividly to life when we speak his words in the voice we would use to talk to our friends because it will resonate authentically. But as Touchstone says in As You Like It, ‘the truest poetry is the most feigning’ (3.3.16–17) and the important difference between speaking Shakespeare and ordinary conversation is that we need to honour the full value of his words, their vowel sounds (long or short, open or closed), the delight of the consonants that help shape the ends of words or that make them kick in the middle, and to look out for words which rhyme, and make them chime. In short, when we try to read a Shakespeare sonnet, we are seeking to make real a heightened and, in many cases, a lyrical language. The verbal music of Shakespeare is there for our taking and our sounding, if we are prepared to seize it and allow it to be heard.
Second, look out for antitheses. Technically, this simple rhetorical figure relates to conflict and opposition. When speaking Shakespeare we need to pay attention to how words are set against each other in the same line of verse. The speaker might notice a relationship of balance between the words. So, in Sonnet 73: ‘That time of year thou mayst in me behold’ (with emphasis on the particularity of a time and the beholding of its effect); ‘When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang’ (emphasising a sense of scarce survival); ‘Upon those boughs which shake against the cold’ (with the emphasis on the physical sensation of the tree exposed to autumn), and moving through the same sonnet we might notice the more genuinely antithetical setting of ‘ruined choirs’ (leafless trees, tattered pages of a book, or perhaps the deserted choir stalls of ruined abbeys) against ‘sweet birds’ (which can evoke
‘choristers’), of ‘twilight’ against ‘day’, ‘Death’s’ against ‘rest’ (sleep), ‘ashes’ against ‘youth’, ‘consumed’ against ‘nourished’, and so on. Word balance or antithesis is present in almost every line and can often be sounded and experienced through a slight pause in the middle of a line, for example, ‘Which by and by [imperceptible pause] black night doth take away’, or ‘In me thou seest [imperceptible pause] the glowing of such fire.’ This is what the great actress Edith Evans called ‘poise’, a tension that holds the words together and keeps us listening.
Third, pay attention to the personal pronouns. We could read this sonnet once through and exaggerate these in order to establish the pathways of relationship and conflict between the poet and the addressee and other subjects in the poem. A good reading never finally exaggerates the personal pronouns, or even draws too much attention to them, but knowing that they are emphatically there will help them to resonate as important emotional and dramatic presences.
Fourth, it is useful to be aware of the ends of the lines, to point them up a little. Try to resist running each line into the next line, even when there is no punctuation to hold you back. Line endings help to distinguish verse from prose. They are there to help the reader and aid the meaning. The word ‘hang’ at the end of line 2 can be squeezed, wrung a little, momentarily sounding the suggestion of melancholy in ‘none, or few’ yellow leaves. If ‘hang’ is allowed to hang (with a short pause after it), then the pay-off comes with the rhyming ‘sang’ two lines later. Similarly, ‘fire’ at the end of line 9 is ignited by ‘glowing’ just before it: ‘fire’ might then achieve something of an erotic charge in the voice. The word can be held on the breath, the vowel sound keeps the mouth open, but only briefly. Consider the words at the ends of the lines as almost like dotted crotchets in music. They are worth their time, and half again. In a Shakespeare sonnet the last word of each line will always pay you extra if you observe and honour its full value.
Fifth, recognise the architecture of the sonnet, often three quatrains and a couplet, with a volta (a turning point) at line 9 or at line 13. In Sonnet 73 the three quatrains present a series of developing images. The couplet is the turning point, as well as the climax. Each quatrain can be treated as a little story in its own right. To approach a sonnet like this will mean that the reader does not give away all of his or her gifts at once.
Sixth, do not be tempted to ‘perform’ the sonnet, as to do so would be to push too hard on it. Shakespeare’s Sonnets can take whatever you bring to them, but ‘acting’ a sonnet risks obscuring, if not squashing, possible nuance and a sense of multidirectional meaning. To read a sonnet well requires work, dedication and sensitivity. They are at once delicate and direct and need to be treated gently. It is no good shouting at them or over-insisting.
Speaking a sonnet, like reading any Shakespeare aloud, requires practice based on close reading and listening. It is about experiencing the poetry much more intimately than is usually possible in a theatre. The good news is that Shakespeare’s sonnets require plenty of digestion. One at a time is plenty. If you are new to them, you might like to dip into the collection and read any that takes your fancy, since they do not need to be read in the order they are printed. Or, after having tried Sonnet 73, you might like to start by working your way through the following: 12, 17, 18, 27, 29, 30, 71, 98, 129, 130, 138.
So, you might like to try reading the sonnet three times through then having some fresh air – open a window, step outside or go for a short walk. Then read the sonnet again and go through the six directions outlined above. After some more fresh air, perhaps repeating some of the phrases you most like over and over to yourself, you will have started to make the sonnet your own. Editions of the Sonnets can be pocket- or handbag-size and individual poems, copied out onto a small piece of paper, can fit into a wallet or a purse. You might read the sonnet you are practising to yourself when you are out on your next walk.
As a rule of thumb, a Shakespeare sonnet should take no more than a minute to read (any longer and you might be being a bit self-indulgent). Reading a sonnet well and then sharing it with a friend is perhaps one of the most intense ways of encountering the power and the joys of Shakespeare’s poetry and it will make you more sensitive to the ways in which his language is spoken by actors the next time you encounter him in the theatre. The power of Shakespeare’s language is, after all, often one of the main reasons people give when they are trying to account for his greatness. Certainly it is one reason, but how else might we begin to respond to the question, ‘Why Shakespeare?’
6
WHY SHAKESPEARE?
The Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, was only half joking when she said that for all writers, a visit to Shakespeare’s Birthplace is like going to Bethlehem. Charles Dickens, whose novels are saturated with Shakespearian allusions, helped to raise money for the Birthplace in its early years, preferring it, rather than a statue, to be the lasting memorial. ‘I find I take so much more interest in his plays, after having been to that dear little dull house he was born in!’ says Mrs Wititterly in chapter twenty-seven of Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, ‘I don’t know how it is, but after you’ve seen the place and written your name in the little book, somehow or other you seem to be inspired; it kindles up quite a fire within one.’ The poet John Keats was certainly inspired by the genius of the place during his visit on 2 October 1817. In the Birthplace visitors’ book, under ‘Place of Abode’, Keats wrote ‘Everywhere’. When visiting Shakespeare’s grave later that same day he expressed the same sentiment in the church’s visitors’ book, but in Latin, ‘ubique’. ‘Everywhere’ and ‘Shakespeare’ were clearly intimately connected in his mind. Keats, whose responses to Shakespeare are truly life-enhancing, will himself play a prominent part in what is to follow. His two signatures and the single words next to them serve as touchstones for the ways in which four centuries of readers, audiences, theatre practitioners, creative writers, political activists and critics have responded to the big question, ‘Why Shakespeare?’ Their answers are part of an ongoing tradition which might be called ‘the Shakespeare effect’, which often feels like it is ‘everywhere’ in our culture. Shakespeare ‘ubique’: why?
WAYS IN
One way is to read the plays and poems but there are many other possibilities through which we might gain a sense of what Shakespeare is in our culture, from retellings for children to opera; from pieces of music and musicals to paintings and ballets; from advertisements to novels and poems; from political speeches to compulsory school assessments; from stage productions to news reports about political crises. These ‘ways in’ do not all lead to precisely the same place, but they all point in the same direction. ‘Shakespeare’ is a large, multifaceted, and polyphonic conversation.
Quite often one hears the story of an epiphany when, for somebody seeing Shakespeare performed live, everything seemed suddenly to make sense. Performances can be powerfully seductive and Shakespeare was writing, in the main, to be performed. ‘I was thunderstruck’, writes the novelist Jane Smiley on recalling a production of Hamlet when she was in twelfth grade, ‘the play seemed to coalesce right before my eyes; the play belonged to me somehow.’24 Many people who sympathise with her reaction will feel, as she did, that they own Shakespeare through understanding and enjoying a production of one of his plays. Certainly Smiley’s account resonates powerfully with my own experience.
But there’s also a long tradition of reading Shakespeare, being captivated by his words on the page. One of the most vivid accounts of reading Shakespeare is by the great eighteenth-century actress, Sarah Siddons, when she was preparing to play Lady Macbeth for the first time, a role for which she became famous:
I went on with tolerable composure in the silence of the night (a night I can never forget), till I came to the assassination scene, when the horrors of the scene rose to a degree that made it impossible for me to get farther. I snatched up my candle, and hurried out of the room, in a paroxysm of t
error.25
That is what reading Shakespeare late at night can do to you.
Another Shakespearian reader, with different ramifications, is Henry Crawford in Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park (1814):
Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman’s constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct. No man of any brain can open at a good part of one of his plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately.
(Mansfield Park, chapter 34)
By the turn of the nineteenth century, Shakespeare’s fate to be everywhere was sealed. Although Austen is clear about Henry Crawford’s own enthusiasm for acting and performance, it is his reading Shakespeare aloud that prompts his sudden eulogy. He praises Shakespeare’s articulacy and his ‘beauties’, possibly a reference to a hugely popular and influential eighteenth-century anthology by William Dodd The Beauties of Shakespeare (first published in 1752 and in its thirty-ninth version as late as 1893). Dodd’s anthology bears out the long and popular practice of disseminating Shakespeare through his ‘Greatest Hits’. Henry Crawford’s approach, like that of many other readers, combines aesthetic judgement – Shakespeare’s eloquence and his ‘flow of meaning’ – with his unchallenged popularity, his unquestioned ‘beauties’, or great moments. But Austen takes us into a political arena with Crawford’s mention of ‘an Englishman’s constitution’. Perhaps writing with characteristically subtle irony Austen was being mindful of the fact that England has no written constitution, only a crown, or perhaps, in the end, only Shakespeare.
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