Tracey Saunders
THERE are few playwrights as celebrated and performed 400 years after their death as William Shakespeare.
This year, four centuries after his death on his 52nd birthday, April 23, 1616 commemorative celebrations will scale new heights. 2016 heralds an abundance of productions and lectures around the globe, with much focus at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London and even a parade through the streets of Stratford-upon-Avon to celebrate his birthday.
In keeping with the malleability of the work the National Theatre in London will stage Twelfth Night where Tamsin Greig will appear as Malvolia, a re-imagined female adaptation of the male role Malvolio.
Opinion about the man and his work range from bardolatry to derision, but love him or hate him, he is difficult to ignore. Aside from his influence on theatre he contributed 1700 words to the English vocabulary by connecting words and changing nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives.
He also created some completely original words including the commonly used new fangled, swagger and manager to the less well-known fracted, cadent and relume. For students and historians the analysis and understanding of Shakespeare’s writing are an academic exercise, but it is when one experiences a memorable live performance that the magic of his work is appreciated.
While theatre today is often a more sedate affair, performances at the Globe in the 1600s were bawdy, brash and bold. The opportunity to watch a Shakespeare that invigorates and entertains is rare, but having watched Nicholas Hytner’s adaptation of Timon of Athens at the National Theatre I can attest to the satisfaction gained from watching a production that interrogates the present with the language of the past.
Watching a performance is one way of appreciating his insights but there are few who have grappled with the texts as thoroughly as Trevor Nunn, the former director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. This year he will direct his 35th Shakespeare leaving only King John and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for him to have directed the complete canon of Shakespeare’s plays. His appreciation of and passion for the bard are boundless.
In a recent interview with Stuart Miller he reiterated his belief about the depth of wisdom contained in the plays. Referring to Shakespeare’s understanding and portrayal of the human condition he said, “His starting point is that we are a deeply flawed species. We are capable of being close to the angels and we are capable of being bestial. Too often we are thoughtless and mindless and cruel. All of those things are in us, deep-rooted. He is very clear about the attractiveness of villainy: Othello doesn’t talk to us, Iago does; it’s an extraordinary relationship Shakespeare sets up, where we are complicit. And yet it is within us to reach ever upwards, to discover mercy, to discover forgiveness, to discover generosity, to live in peace.”
It is this strange notion of complicity that Brett Bailey explores in his interpretation of Verdi’s Macbeth which will be performed this week in Brussels, Belgium. Critics of the 2014 performance of the work at the Barbican said “his version retains an authentically Verdian propulsive urgency, visceral rawness and stark majesty.”
The humanity evident in Shakespeare’s universal stories is one of the driving forces behind the Globe to Globe tour which aims to take Hamlet to every country in the world during its two year tour. To date they have visited 167 countries and travelled 276,416 kms. Last week they performed Hamlet at the Jungle Refugee camp in Calais, France, currently the home to hundreds of refugees of more than 22 nationalities. The company are no strangers to refugee camps having performed previously at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan and the Mirkazi camp in Djibouti. To deal with the challenges of language photocopied synopses of the play in Kurdish, Pashto, Arabic, English, Farsi and French were given to the audience who for a brief while were transported to another place and time.
Theses abound on the reasons for the endurance of Shakespeare’s text and his universal appeal with many divergent opinions and some criticising the slight obsession many English language practitioners have with his work.
For many their first introduction to Shakespeare is at school and sadly it doesn’t always end well. The opportunity to watch the text brought to life on stage however adds another dimension and many Cape Town students are afforded such an opportunity as the set work Othello is performed at Maynardville this year. Directed by Fred Abrahamse and designed with a distinctive African flair by Marcel Meyer this year also celebrates the 60th anniversary of this beautiful outdoor venue and for several Capetonians this annual tradition will take on a special meaning this year.
On the other side of the mountain audiences have the rare opportunity to watch acclaimed West End actors Andrew Wincott, Delena Kidd, Frank Barrie and Emily Raymond in Sweet Mr Shakespeare at the Theatre on the Bay. The reference to the man as sweet may be misguided as EAJ Honigmann author of more than a dozen books on Shakespeare wrote in Shakespeare’s Impact on His Contemporaries that it was only after his death that he was referred to as sweet. Something that Honingman says is indicative only of a “convention of eulogy” an not necessarily of his nature.
The previous references to his sweetness were about his work and an acknowledgement of the mellifluous nature of his poetry. This production presents both the sweet and the savage side of his writing in extracts from the plays and many of the popular soliloquies will be performed. In addition it examines his life and the reaction to his work over the centuries.
One of the actors, Frank Barrie, recently appeared in EastEnders but is better known for his record of 12 consecutive standing ovations at the Brisbane Twelfth Night Theatre in 1982 for his performance in Macready. There really is no better way to commemorate the year than watching actors of this calibre perform their mini tribute to Shakespeare.
From refugee camps to outdoor amphitheatres, from Brussels to Djibouti, the bard will be a ubiquitous feature this year. Don’t allow the occasion to pass without out some enjoyment of his legacy.
l Sweet Mr Shakespeare will be staged at Theatre on the Bay from February 9 to 13. Othello is on at Maynardville until February 23, 0861 915 8000.