Shakespeare - love or hate?

I am quite surprised at how long this thread has continued. Thank you all for your comments. Reading some of them has made me think that I should, the next opportunity I get, watch one of his more well known or comic plays. I believe that it is quite possible that I could enjoy it as I have grown to appreciate other more serious things in later life.

D1 just gave me the local paper to read about one of her ex students who D1 taught when she herself was teaching as a contract teacher at the local secondary school. Her student who is now 25 and has been offered a place in a Master"s course in Goldsmith"s part of the University of London. In the article she said when she was younger she never read a lot but when she began studying English and Drama she was hooked. Then she went on to say she was greatly encouraged by her drama teacher and named my daughter. She also added that she came to love Shakespeare after playing Puck in Midsummer Night"s Dream in a school play. I can still remember watching that particular performance and remember the student. My daughter.is thrilled!!

Ganga That 'Shakespeare by Heart' was indeed a wonderful programme.
I came on it by chance and was absolutely riveted.I do wish that all those who are bored by the bard can watch it.I will certainly try to watch it again on Catchup.
What amazing children- they must have had inspiring teachers.

When the RSC Education team ran a project with the local primary and secondary schools, my 9-year-old GD took part with enthusiasm and played the part of Jessica in a scene from The Merchant of Venice. The schools also did scenes from The Dream in which she was cast as Helena and did written work based on the play. This is the way to capture the interest of children - involve them.

Faye Lucky, lucky granddaughters. How wonderful to be brought up with Shakespeare all around them. I remember DD2 as a very small girl sitting so still she hardly seemed to breathe for two hours in the hot sun at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall. Now her small son gets so engrossed in the pantomime he cannot sit in his seat but has to stand at the front of the dress circle clutching the brass rail, and again hardly seeming to breathe. He will progress to loving Shakespeare I am sure. My problem is that going to the theatre is SO expensive. The concessions, apart from the RSC who are wonderful and do half price tickets for children, are infinitesimal.

Did you see that wonderful programme last night on Shakespeare By Heart? Children from all over the country, picked from 11,000 I think it was, to come to Stratford and recite speeches they had learned. They were absolutely brilliant, and so enthusiastic about Shakespeare. Filled me with hope for the next generation.

thanks feetlebaum yes it is in our language. I didn't get it at school but doing a degree at 40 I got fasinated and sidelined doing a special study. Have loved ever since. But yes the actual plays. All human nature is there. Human nature hasn't changed. King Lear, Taming of the shrew, my daughter was in Twelth Night at school. I only love them in the period with the old language and nver go to modern versions but maybe young people who have never done him cope with these. There is such depth for us to relate to.

"Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of human nature.....he approximates the remote, and familarizes the wonderful...his truth is general, and universal." Samuel Johnson on Shakespeare

E.g.

"When troubles come, they come not in single spies, but in battalions."

"Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er fraught heart and bids it break."

Etc. Anyway....better than the so often quoted words of Polonius, which are one long list of Elizabethan cliches. (To thine own self be true etc)

I enjoy Shakespeare but I always try and read before a performance which helps to get the resonances of the play as sometimes I miss details in the telling! I loved it at school.. we always acted it out in class ( I went on to do drama at college !!) and school did a production of The Dream and I played Puck.. but had to wear the most awful costume & plastic ears as well, looked more like Spock!!

Saw Judy Dench reprise her role a Titania recently having seen her in the 60's ..fab! Ian McKellen's Lear was pretty good too..a while back now though!

Recently saw Duchess of Malfi (I know it's not Shakespeare) and that was a great production..but grim!

Paul Robeson had an amazing voice, my dad loved him.

Faye lovely to hear about your daughter and granddaughter.
I remember my daughter at age 16 playing Rosalind in an outdoor performance of 'As you Like It'.She is now an inspiring teacher in choral music
I LOVE Shakespeare. School didn’t inspire but I must have absorbed.I can still remember many well known passages and sometimes read Shakespeare aloud.It exercises my voice when there’s no-one else to talk to!
Thank you feetlebaum for the quote.Our language is so enriched by the bard.
A live stage play is my favourite. preferably a comedy.Which is your most memorable performance?- watching or participating-stage or film?
jeni did you actually see Paul Robeson as Othello? Wish I had. I heard him sing in Edinburgh in 1957.
I’m planning to order some Shakespeare DVDs from Amazon.
Any recommendations?

Ganja my granddaughters from around two years old have watched some of their mother's performances. The eldest, now seven often watches her mother's plays twice in a row. She sits quietly and seems to just absorb them and has been doing this since she was about five. She does ask to see them and nothing would be worse than a young child sitting restless in a seat, disturbing other people. My daughter also puts on Pantomimes for primary age school children and some come dressed up as the characters and really get involved. Primary schools in the area also bring their students along to see these performances.

I really believe that people often get enjoyment from theatre when they have been exposed to it as children. I believe the same would be for ballet and opera. I can still remember seeing my first Pantomime when I was about seven.

One of my granddaughters is named Imogen after the the daughter of King Cymbeline, in Shakespeare's play, Cymbeline. Her mother, my eldest daughter loved Shakespeare so much she had a book of Shakespeare next to her bed, which she read when she had time between studying for her Year 12 exams. She went on to teach drama herself and I have thoroughly enjoyed her Shakespeare performances. I think my daughter must be an amazing drama teacher because many of her old students still talk about their time in Ms D's class when they come to see her current productions.

I also once saw a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Botanical Gardens on a warm balmy night. It was a magical night watching a wonderful play!

What would you consider a suitable age to take a child to a Shakespeare play? I've always thought about 8 myself, but when I invited my 11year old grandson to a local production of Henry V, with picnic supper, his mother dismissed the idea saying it would be way above his head. Yet I heard on the radio that some primary schools are putting on simplified plays in professional theatres, and the children are simply revelling in it. Hooray I say!

Since when ga has 448 been a special anniversary? ...could understand if in two years time?

School didn't ruin Shakespeare for me ...in fact my first experience of going to the theatre ...we were taken to Stratford for a week-end, youth hostelling ...whole experience was amazing! Also loved a recent visit to The Globe. Oh, and the open air theatre in Regent's Park ...do they still do that??

Hadn't realised until the recent tv series on James I, how many of his plays were actually Jacobean ...nor how many were set in Italy. It seems there are 7 years of his life that are 'missing' from the records ...so the Italians believe he was travelling there, as these plays are accurate to that time in Italian history.

I so hope the World Festival at the Globe is being recorded to be shown on tv

The bard didn't write this ditty but if he had then he might well have composed it thus:

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke.
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from heaven's yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke---banish now thy doubt
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about'

I admit Shakespeare can be a little difficult to follow so go to this youtube link to hear a modern translation for non Shakepeare readers.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDmCSvqhhoI

Coriolanus gave me nightmares after I saw it on TV!

Not the dream please or the tempest. Coriolanus Henry v Caesar Titus andronicus. Ie the nice peaceful ones!

I love the more popular Shakespeare plays like Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, but cannot get into Richard 111, Henry V and other such of his plays. Can't abide Shakespeare films that involve lots of knights riding round on chargers and yelling at each other to fight the foe.

I have to say I am a fan of Shakespeare plays. I was blessed with a good English teacher at School. watch a good film version and the whole plots become much clearer.
The David Tennant Hamlet on television a couple of years ago was brilliant and when you see it acted you learn much better what is going on.

Shakespeare haters might try looking at his sonnets first - they are very moving and accessible - and are in small chunks, unlike the plays. And it is worth thinking about the structure of the sonnets - he was a very clever man.

I too had Shakespeare torn apart at school and it was boring beyond belief. And I do find the plays hard sometimes, especially if the actors speak too fast - I need time to decipher the old language and to understand what is going on.

But he really did understand human nature and that is where his appeal lies (and this is why people say he is still relevant today). I think he is worth a second go if you were put off at school.

On Quoting Shakespeare

"If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me'', you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare."

Bernard Levin

I'm afraid I'm with gangy,anagram and harri. I've read them, acted in them, watched them so many times and just can't get him. Pet hate is when they put on a modern day version.

Can't stand Shakespeare and would never go to watch a play.

Does anyone remember Paul Robeson as othello?

I love the Bard now and when I was at school we had a brilliant English Teacher school and am really looking forward to going to Stratford next month to see Julius Caesar which I did for O Level in the Dark Ages. I have said in another thread if you dont enjoy Shakespear but would like to some really good films have been made in recent years and you can get a DVD and watch it in batches at home. The best ones for me were Al Pacino's Merchant of Venice and Mel Gibson's Hamlet.