Wherefore art thou, dictionary?

I have only seen five of Shakespeare’s plays in my life so I don’t for one moment claim to be an expert. Far from it. And I am definitely not one of those luvvie types. My dad worked for a living.  

However, I have enough experience of his works now to confirm that I really do enjoy them. Well, four of the five anyway. My Henry V experience in 1998 was a failure of such epic proportions, that I also failed to return after the interval. At first I thought it was the production company’s fault. Then I blamed the Palace Theatre in Manchester. The audiences were obviously a lot smaller when it was built in 1891. There wasn’t even room to swing a Cornetto. It took me fully thirty seconds to unwedge myself to let someone go past.

Then I realised it was my fault all along. I eventually worked out that this, my third play at the time, was actually the first play I had seen where I hadn’t read it beforehand.  What was I thinking? Watching a Shakespeare play without any prior knowledge is like watching an arty French film without the subtitles. You can claim to be cool for watching it, and name-check it at every opportunity, but you just spent 2 hours of your life very confused and more than just a little bit disturbed.  

The prose may be pure genius, but let’s be honest, nigh on impossible to understand the first time around. Especially when delivered at pace by an accomplished actor. Like me, you may notice that it’s just the women in the audience who laugh at the one-liners.  That’s because they paid attention in school and remember it. It’s not because they understand the punch line there and then. And be very alarmed if the clown / fool / jester embarks on a solo monologue – because for someone who is supposed to be the dumbest player in the story, he always has the most complicated and intellectual things to say. (If in doubt, laugh when the women do.)

Then there are the characters. Whoa. How many dukes, kings, queens, ladies, knights, servants et al can we have in the same story. And their names will all seem to be anagrams of each other. Family relations? You can bet your life there will be plenty, and most will be married to each other. And the love triangles? Just remember that free love rules. And then there’s men playing women, and women playing men, and gay men playing the lead women... no wait a minute that last bit was probably just unique to Melbourne.

William would be appalled.

So for the two productions we recently saw in Melbourne and thoroughly enjoyed,  I borrowed the books from the library beforehand. They tend to be around 100 or so pages, so don’t take long at all to digest even allowing for repeated reads at certain pages. But no more than a few hours are needed. You can choose the basic unabridged text, or a version that includes a translation and even some crazy flow charts to map out the plot and the characters.

What they can’t do is predict how the touring company will choose to interpret the play. The Twelfth Night production we saw last week featured cast versions of Tubthumping by Chumbawumba and Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. It really shouldn’t have worked but somehow it did.

Whichever route you go, consider reading up on it first - thou shalt enjoy more. And you'll also get some seriously funny looks from people on the train ("what the... Shakespeare, you? I don't think so.") 

And remember, you’re not alone. Most people are having trouble with it, they just won’t admit it.