Shakespeare is one of the most analysed and critiqued figures in literature, but today I wish to write about him as someone who remains central to his work — a spectator! It is I, the spectator, who brings his work to life every time I experience it. His writings are difficult to escape in everyday life as many of us quote him without even realising it, but particularly in London where his storylines continue to be the vein of creative fixtures in street theatre, parks, the West End and cinemas alike.
Over the years, as I saw his plays again and again, initially only by coincidence, I found myself reacting to the same plots differently — reliving, reinventing, reinterpreting them at different stages of my life. That’s how I came to understand the meaning of depth in storytelling, and the benefit of a nuanced complexity and panache that a Shakespearean story holds.
So, if I were to explain Shakespeare’s genius to the uninitiated, I would visualise his magic as a three-dimensional paradigm…
The first dimension is the reliability of his characters. While the raconteurs of our times perpetuate the infallibility of superheroes and heroines, Shakespeare’s protagonists can be vulnerable, naive, deceptive and magnanimous at different points in the same play. Hamlet, for example, misses a rare chance to murder Claudius as he prays, because he thinks that would render his revenge ignoble — a grave mistake for which he later pays with his life. We also see how he doesn’t immediately believe when he’s told that Claudius has killed his father. He stages a play to see Claudius’s reaction himself.
So there’s a full range of human experience that is relatable and realistic. Even female characters go far beyond the confines of the Elizabethan society. Desdemona in the Venetian senate comes to mind.
The second dimension is his artistry of wordplay and pun. There’s a perception that Shakespeare’s work isn’t easy to read.. Yes, some of the words are now obsolete or have changed meanings, and he was writing at a time when English grammar was going through its own transition.. however, that perhaps gave him the freedom to invent and interchange words. Also, so much of his work is in poetic form that there’s always a rhythm, pace and momentum that prompts changes of mood and meaning.
This is that depth of meaning I alluded to earlier. When Hamlet says, ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’, he isn’t just talking about suicide but rather human existence and its purpose in the world.
The third dimension, one perhaps less talked about, is Shakespeare’s skill of juxtaposing plots. Yes his stories have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order. Shakespeare skilfully does that in the original plot of King Lear, where Gloucester is in conversation with his son in the first scene. This gives him the premise to mention the King and his dilemmas which are yet to come. This brilliant trick hooks the audience to the storyline!
Together, the plot, the wordplay and the characters — reimagined and relived by the spectator — create the trance that is called Shakespeare.
The essence of the Bard, however, lies in the fact that he doesn’t necessarily tell us what to think but to question everything we see and hear.
