Is Shakespeare overrated? | Books

Is Shakespeare overrated?

Dear Stanley,

Shakespeare's obviously pretty good. But the share of media and academic attention he is receiving at the moment is well in excess of anything an individual writer could deserve. And, worse, it means that other writers of his period are neglected. Shakespeare is the Renaissance for an English-speaking audience, and he is too narrow in his interests and culture to justify this. Worse again, 'Shakespeare' is now only a handful of plays. Who really wants to see another Romeo And Juliet? Does anyone who is seriously interested in theatre still go to the RSC? Occasionally you hear rumours of something lively in the Swan Theatre or in the Other Place, or the thing near the car-park in the Barbican. I enjoyed The Devil Is An Ass (how long ago was that?), but anything I have seen in the main house recently has suggested that Shakespeare is definitely no longer 'our contemporary', as Jan Kott put it in the 1960s. He is just a safe choice. I'm not attacking Stratford as such, just seeing it as a symptom, a sad collusion of conservative education policy and the anxiety of cash-strapped theatre companies.

Almost every Shakespearean production I have seen recently has been tired and sad. I would compare the Almeida productions of Racine's Britannicus and Phedre. I suspect that the theatre profession is bored with most of the material it is condemned to repeat. Wouldn't it be better to do Peele's Old Wives' Tale than another Midsummer Night's Dream? Or Massinger's The Roman Actor rather than Antony and Cleopatra, Marston's The Dutch Courtesan rather than Measure For Measure... I could go on (I probably will). Yours,

Edward Burns
Senior lecturer in English
University of Liverpool

Dear Edward,
Isn't it a bit unfair to blame Shakespeare for the neglect of other writers of his time? Of course, specialists like you and me are pleased when we can see plays by his contemporaries, as we quite often can. At the Globe last season you could see plays by Dekker and Middleton, and the RSC has recently put on Ford's The Broken Heart and Kyd's Spanish Tragedy - both excellent productions, but they didn't do very well at the box office. The reason, surely, is that, for all their merits, they simply don't have the breadth of appeal of the best plays by Shakespeare.

It's true that, largely because of under-funding by successive governments, the range of Shakespeare plays available to the public has narrowed. Still, the RSC has a production of Troilus And Cressida, which will soon go on tour, the National is shortly to do the same play, and the RSC will put on Timon Of Athens this summer. And it's all very well to say 'Who wants to see another Romeo And Juliet' - what about the enormous number of people who've never seen it? You ask if anyone 'seriously interested in theatre' still goes to the RSC. Well, I do if that counts, and anyhow the RSC is not the only company to produce Shakespeare, either in England or overseas. There have been innovative productions by Cheek by Jowl, and next season at the Globe you can see Mark Rylance as Cleopatra. Surely you can't ask for anything more innovative than that? Best wishes,

Stanley Wells
Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare studies
University of Birmingham

Dear Stanley,
Yes, I am very pleased that the Globe at least has a policy to expand the public's knowledge of theatre of Shakespeare's time and an open-minded approach to production style. But I still think my first point stands. Shakespeare has dominated theatrical life in this country for too long. The narrow range of roles for women in his plays has shaped the career available to an actress in Britain to a limiting extent. In plays by French, Russian and Scandinavian writers, an actress can develop through a greater range of emotions and through the length of her acting career.

Actually, the other English Renaissance writers, of whom I mentioned a few in my first letter, also offer better roles for mature women than Shakespeare does. Shakespeare's domination often creates a gap in actresses' careers when they have to go from being the dutiful daughter to the mother figure. I mention this because the vogue for Shakespeare is often justified by the idea that he represents human lives in a universal way. But surely we need to dislodge this one particular, if supremely talented, writer from the position he has reached if theatre in this country is to regain the range and vitality it once had.
Yours, Edward

Dear Edward,
Aren't you simply saying that Shakespeare alone is not enough? Of course he did not say everything about the human race. But I should argue that he has no rival for emotional and intellectual breadth, for wit and humour as well as rhetoric and poetic eloquence, for human understanding and imaginative power, and for the capacity to engage with the minds and hearts of his audiences. Which is another way of saying that he is, in the fullest sense of the word, the greatest of entertainers. And surely the fact that his plays survive translation into other languages and cultures so brilliantly is a testimony to his supremacy.

I'm sure, too, that in spite of what you say about Shakespeare's failure to provide enough roles for mature actresses, an important reason why his plays form the cornerstone of the dramatic repertoire is the extraordinary challenges and opportunities that he provides for his performers, both men and women. Actors and actresses want to test themselves against his roles, and audiences love the excitement of seeing them do so. Admittedly Webster, for example, in The Duchess Of Malfi and The White Devil, wrote women's roles that rival, perhaps outstrip anything in Shakespeare, but overall Webster's range is far less.

Of course, in relation to Racine, Ibsen and Chekhov, Shakespeare - like his contemporaries - was hamstrung by having to write women's parts that would be played by boys, but even so Tamora, Queen Margaret, Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra and Volumnia give women plenty to get their teeth into. So can't we hope for a policy of peaceful co-existence? Shakespeare and the rest, not Shakespeare versus the rest?

Best wishes, Stanley

Dear Stanley,
Peaceful co-existence seems like a good idea; but I still feel that Shakespeare has acquired a kind of Godzilla-like size from what is basically laziness and complacency on the part of academics and the media.

But then it depends on what you mean by 'Shakespeare', doesn't it? No one can deny that someone of that name was the greatest poet ever to write for the theatre. But 'Shakespeare' as an industry, as a brand name... I think it is getting very tired. We need to reassess the plays, to stop taking them for granted. One way to do this would be to broaden our knowledge of his period and his theatre, and maybe also to acknowledge his limitations.

Wordsworth once asked why, if Shakespeare was so obviously the greatest genius, people felt it necessary to repeat that idea over and over again. I think this is still a kind of mantra on English culture, which has less and less real connection to an understanding of great plays and poetry. I just feel that in our current climate, 'Shakespeare' has lost the vital life it once had, and still deserves.
Cheers, Edward

Dear Edward,
Well, it depends not only what you mean by Shakespeare, but also what you mean by 'we' when you say, for instance, that 'we' need to reassess the plays. Judging by the number of critical studies I see, an amazing amount of reassessing goes on all the time. And isn't every production, every film based on one of the plays, a reassessment? There is, I would admit, a danger that greatness may become familiar, that the use of the word Shakespeare as a kind of brand name that can be applied whenever an assertion of cultural status is needed, does nobody any good. In an ideal world, the plays of all worthwhile dramatists would be available in productions that bring them to vivid life for today's audiences. I wish you success in your crusade on behalf of Shakespeare's neglected contemporaries, but I think that even if you succeed, Shakespeare will still be the brightest star in the constellation!
Best wishes, Stanley

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