brush up your shakespeare

i have a confession to make. i don't really like shakespeare. this has been a difficult truth in my life, because not only do i "do theatre" as a profession, but i also was an english major in college and have always felt like i should appreciate the bard better. but for some reason, i never did. i felt alienated from his plays by his language, and was so distracted by the fact that he "borrowed" all his material that i never really appreciated the plays for what they were. this has been a difficulty in my line of work/ study but i've borne it so far and i've done alright with it.

then something happened. last weekend i saw hamlet at the lantern. this production stars the ingenious geoff sobelle as hamlet and really blew me away. in my new attempt to appreciate acting more and focus on tech less, i went into the show promising to pay attention to the story and the play and not the production value (which, by the way, was fantastic). geoff made this easy. as a physical actor, geoff is the best i've ever seen. his body motions are like the flow of water - natural, fluid, and unpredictable but always smooth. and the way he delivered his shakespeare was really unlike anything i've ever experienced. i FORGOT that i was watching shakespeare when geoff delivered his monologues. the words rolled off his tongue in the most conversational and natural way. this renaissance play that i never really felt connected to became a work that i could relate to. and it was mostly because of geoff's acting.

i wonder if a lot of people feel the way that i do about shakespeare - that it is old, alien, and kind of boring. his story lines are all very similar (just read the compleat works of wllm shkspr (abridged) and you'll see what i mean - they compress all his comedies into one story) and his tragedies almost predictably end with disastrous death. but perhaps all that i needed (and what others who may question the bard's authority on theatre need) was for someone to breathe some fresh air into a 400 year old play. i think this is one of the most important aspects of performance art - it really brings old works to life in a way that makes them understandable and personally important. this may seem like an unimportant task when people are faced with a massive recession, home foreclosures, and unemployment but i think it's crucial to be reminded of the past and how people have worked through difficult times. more importantly, arts are an escape from our own lives. shakespeare might not be what i would use to escape reality, but it is what a lot of other people use. and quality productions of theatre that transport you to a different place and a different time where you can ponder issues others than what might be confronting you right now are invaluable.

all this is to say, i feel a little ashamed that in ever really appreciated shakespeare. but now that i've seen such an incredible performance of hamlet, i get what the fuss is about. and hey, maybe this means that i'll finally appreciate that yale book award i won in high school (which just happened to be the complete works of william shakespeare).

what do you do with a ba in english?

my epic quest to see avenue q started in 2004. i'd heard of it before then but was so wrapped up in my freshman year of college that i never thought i'd make it to new york to see it. but then i switched majors (biochemistry to english) and became much more involved in theatre (2 shows a year to 6). and it just seemed right. i was supposed to go with a friend and it fell through a few times. my junior year of college i bought a ticket through my college house to go on a group trip but that fell through as well. whenever i went to new york there was always something else that seemed more pressing to see or i was just too busy (or too poor) to see a show. so last weekend when i was in new york and had nothing else to do besides relax and the option to see avenue q arose, i jumped at the opportunity.

we jumped on the subway (going into manhattan from brooklyn just seemed too perfect), threw our names in the lottery, made a few friends in line, and magically won front row seats. as i sat there enjoying a show that had been on my mind for 5 years, i began to wonder what one actually does with a ba in english. i know lots of people who, like me, have this "useless degree" and they are doing all kinds of things - working in publishing, teaching 7th grade literature, actress, journalist, salesperson - the list goes on and on. what draws us to english in the first place? why is it one of the most popular majors at liberal arts universities?

my guess (and this is speaking mostly from experience) is that english as a discipline feeds a part of ones' intellectual curiosity in a way that few other fields can do. english majors are asked to read and think, interpret and re-examine, question and explain. we can approach something like joyce's ulysses and discuss its relationship to homer's original work or we can find the social ramifications of cross-dressing in a shakespearean comedy. english programs (or at least good english programs) do not want specific answers, they want many answers to the same question and they draw creative people whose quest for understanding far exceeds their own desire to be "right." english majors make new contributions to the intellectual world every day, whether it is translating a little-discussed medieval work, giving us insight into a long gone culture, or proofreading some major celebrity's memoir, which will encourage thousands to read. we english majors take the skills we've gained from reading countless works of fiction, drama, poetry, and nonfiction and apply it to all sorts of random professions.

so i guess this whole post is an attempt to answer the question that is posed at the beginning of avenue q, what does one do with a ba in english? the answer is elusive, like almost anything within the discipline of english. or maybe it is just this simple: whatever you make of it. i for one hope to give back to the world of academia. but we need people who think critically in all arenas of life and contribute positively and that, princeton from avenue q, is what we do.