A Standing Ovation for Shakespeare

In my previous blog post on Shakespeare, I wrote about how Shakespeare’s timeless themes are one of the many reasons that he is still so beloved after 450 years. During the Smithsonian Associates’ lecture “Shakespeare 450: A Standing Ovation,” on Tuesday evening, Carol Ann Lloyd Stanger illustrated this with a heartwarming and beautiful example.

In a war camp in Syria, children and families live in a community made of tents and dirt roads. The children don’t attend school; it is the least of their concerns. Syrian actor-turned-director Nawwar Bulbul was not okay with the prospect of these children losing valuable time in their lives for education and imagination. So, with the help of some of his friends, he created “Shakespeare’s Tent.”

This is a place where children can come to put on productions of Shakespeare with one requirement: they have to promise Bulbul that they will return to school as soon as they can.

With the promise made, the children set to work to put on their productions of King Lear and Hamlet. Both are plays that deal with themes of loss, honesty, and power. The most important part of these productions for Bulbul is the line, “to be or not to be,” from Hamlet.

“They so craved a safe place to talk about lives, fears, their sense of loss… and that place was Shakespeare,” Stanger explained.

The children performed their plays in the center of the camp, on a stage that took the form of a giant square drawn in the sand, with swords made of brooms and old broken pipes. They wore the clothes that they had on that day. Families and friends came to watch the performance and eventually they were invited to Amman to perform for an even larger crowd.

These children’s entire view of themselves changed. They had the confidence to perform in front of all of these people. They had a way to cope with the challenges that they faced. And they were shown the endless possibilities that are out there. As one girl commented, she could “be an actor, or a doctor, who knows?”

And as one child said, “I do not feel lonely anymore.”

With this story in mind, Stanger begged the question: Why Shakespeare?

Why do we continue to read the works of a man who was born 450 years ago? Why did Bulbul choose him as a path for these children’s education?

The first answer that popped into my head was the themes. King Lear and Hamlet are tragedies that feature dark issues. The characters face loss, the corruption and changing of power, and the choice between what is right and what is wrong. This may not directly reflect the lives of the reader or viewer (or actor, in this case), but the emotions and tribulations behind the themes are universal, as are the ways in which we deal with them. These children used dark plays written over 400 years ago to cope with the emotions they faced and the violence around them.

A Standing Ovation for Shakespeare

Stanger had a much longer list of reasons for “Why Shakespeare?” which she calls her Shakespeare Top 10. She used this list to not only shed light on the question at hand, but also to provide the audience with a look into the life and times of Shakespeare.

Right Time: In England, during Shakespeare’s life, there were many changes occurring. It was a time for exploration into new worlds, new sciences, and new social structures. These new findings and ideas needed new language to communicate them, and Shakespeare was just the man for the job. It was also a time when there was a shift from theater as a group of traveling players to theater as an established building, or “the theater” as we think of it today.

Right Place: Shakespeare’s father held many civic positions in their town of Stratford Upon Avon. One of these positions, bailiff, required that he approve all plays that were to be put on for the people of the town. Players would come to his house and perform just for him. It isn’t hard to imagine a young wide-eyed Shakespeare sitting with his father watching these plays and having his interest for the theater heightened. Shakespeare was an actor before he was a playwright, and it is speculated that he may have joined one of these traveling groups that came through his town.

Royal Support: During Shakespeare’s time as an actor and a playwright, two monarchs held the throne: Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. Both were highly fond of pageantry, celebration, and flamboyance, which led to an interest in the theater. There was serious censorship during this time and more often than not, one would write their plays to please the monarch. Stanger mentioned a fun story: many like to think Queen Elizabeth I loved the character of Falstaff in Henry IV so much, that she asked Shakespeare use him more often. From this came The Merry Wives of Windsor, where Falstaff makes more of an appearance.

Social Changes: Social mobility was becoming more of a factor at the time. Shakespeare applied to have a coat of arms made for his father, which can be seen at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The fact that a family with as little political power as Shakespeare’s would be granted a coat of arms was a reflection of the times. More and more people were applying and being granted coats of arms during his time.

Actor’s Eye: As mentioned previously, Shakespeare was an actor before he was a playwright. He may have acted in some of his own plays, and some scholars think he performed as the Ghost of Hamlet in his productions of Hamlet. Plays were written not to be read, but to be watched, and Shakespeare’s experience as an actor gave him valuable insight when he transitioned to the role of a playwright. He knew how to write for the actors, for the stage, and for the audience.

Comedies: Shakespeare’s comedies almost always feature the promise of marriage, a trick or a prank, a world that has been put back together, a knot that has been unknotted, and family. Some examples are Much Ado About Nothing, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Twelfth Night.

Histories: The history plays, while often dreaded the most by school children, are “endlessly adaptable” as Stanger says. They feature both the past and what is to come, politics then and now, and question who is and who should be king. In his history plays, Shakespeare does not hesitate to

A Standing Ovation for Shakespeare

play around with characters and plot, to make it more entertaining, as long as the historical outcome is the same. Modern renditions of the history plays can be used to reflect sentiments at the time.

Tragedies: Shakespeare’s tragedies have the ability to bring us to the edge of our seat, to tears, and to cause us to think deeply about the questions he poses through his characters and their actions. There is almost always an ending where the world is still broken and the death toll is high. “It’s being catapulted toward an outcome you can't prevent," Stanger comments, and I think this is what keeps us so intrigued and interested. We so desperately want Romeo to wake up in time, or Othello to find out the truth about Desdemona, but we know with Shakespeare’s tragedies it is not likely.

Timeless: If I have said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Shakespeare’s themes, and even some of his characters, are timeless. That is why the children in Syria performed his plays and that is why many people are gathering throughout the world this year to celebrate his 450th birthday.

Language: Stanger pointed out to the audience that, because most of Shakespeare’s plays were based off of existing narratives, the theater goers did not attend his productions for the plot or the outcome, but instead they must have gone to listen to the beautiful language that he crafted.