Shakespeare Magazine 06

SHAKESPEAREAt last! A magazine with all the Will in the world

Set in stoneFive great exclusive

Shakespeare interviews!Shakespeare Hero Ben Crystal Clever Comedian Sara Pascoe

The Tutor novelist Andrea Chapin Kill Shakespeare’s Anthony Del Col Superteacher Phil Beadle meets Bard Evangelist Ben Walden

Art thou Grumio?Our college girl takes on The Taming of the Shrew

Big Books Giveaway!

Brilliant Bard Books up for grabs inside!

Issue 6FREE

Hamlet Alone?Exploding the myth of “To be or not to be…”

WelcomeShakespeareans tend to have a way with words, and this issue features !ve interviews to inspire and enlighten anyone with an interest in the Bard.

to Issue 6 of Shakespeare Magazine

Welcome!

SHAKESPEARE magazine 3

Photo

: D

avid

Ham

monds

Acclaimed educator and author Phil Beadle verbally spars with actor-director Ben Walden, a man possessed of compelling faith in the power of Shakespeare.

And Kill Shakespeare co-creator Anthony Del Col ri!s on the exciting possibilities for Shakespeare in TV, video games and, of course, comics.

Comedian Sara Pascoe has been delighting audiences with her mixture of amiable whimsy and razor-sharp wit. Here, she tells us all about the 16th Century man in her life – namely Shakespeare.

Staying in the 16th Century is Andrea Chapin, whose novel "e Tutor introduces readers to a young, ambitious and mercurial William Shakespeare.

Rounding o! this virtual symposium is one of the most exciting all-round talents in the Shakespeare world right now. Ben Crystal tells us about his workshops, his books, collaborating with his dad, and the wonders of ‘OP’.

Enjoy your magazine.

Pat Reid, Founder & Editor

LOVE, SEX &SHAKESPEARE...

“We will always be haunted by the question‘What inspired Shakespeare’s greatest poetry?’

In her captivating debut novel, Andrea Chapino!ers a brilliant solution...”

James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

Published in the UK by Penguin on 26 March, £7.99

! The Taming of the Shrew

Our US Staff Writer

breaks the gender

wall and takes to

the stage as Grumio

in her college’s

ambitious production

of Shakespeare’s most

boisterous comedy.

Words: Mary Finch

The Taming of the GRU6 SHAKESPEARE magazine

The Taming of the Shrew!

fter putting on my jacket and straightening my hat, I turned to my sister with an air of expectancy. “You look like an asshole,” she said, laughing. I smiled. That was exactly the look I was going for.

I was wearing leather pants, black kicks (that’s what the kids call those shoes, right?), a T-shirt two sizes too large, and a hoodie to match. The ensemble was topped off with a grey beanie on my head, and a bruise around my eye. The final touch was an oversized gold watch on my wrist. The wardrobe was inspired in part by Justin Bieber and Kanye West, so not my normal style.

Over the next three hours, I got into fights (losing most of them), made crude jokes, drove go-karts and fought with lightsabres, all in the name of William Shakespeare. I was playing Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew.

“!e wardrobe was inspired in part by Justin Bieber and Kanye West, so not my normal style”

!


!The Taming of the Shrew

Mary is transformed into a brawling Shakespearean delinquent…

This adventure began three months ago when I decided to audition. The fact that it’d been seven years since my last acting experience didn’t deter me. Nor did the fact that this play features hardly any female roles. Knowing that Messiah College, my small liberal arts school would have an abundance of girls competing to play Katherina and Bianca, I decided that in true Shakespearean fashion I’d try to “suit me all points like a man”.

Looking at the array of men’s parts, I considered my petite frame and artsy demeanor, and settled on auditioning for Petruchio’s hot-headed companion Grumio. To my disappointment, I was only called back for the female roles, but when the director, Tom Ryan, was short of someone to read Grumio, I was on stage before he could finish asking for volunteers. One anxious week later, the cast list was up and I was on my way to checking one more item off my bucket list.

With the anxiety of auditions removed, though, I found myself beginning to worry about the fate of this beloved text. The first read-through, which took six hours, did little to boost my confidence in the capabilities of this cast (myself included) to tackle one of the Bard’s most nuanced comedies.

Much to my chagrin, my college had not performed Shakespeare in four years, so for most of us this was the first Shakespeare play we had been involved in. But I was not exactly enthralled by the director’s vision – a modern-day Shrew where the Minola family owned a pizza shop in Little Italy, NYC, while Lucentio travelled from Texas and Petruchio came from New Jersey. However, what unfolded over the month-and-a-half of rehearsals astounded me.

Tom set the tone from the beginning. “These characters are stereotypical,” he said at the first rehearsal, “but their relationships

“I decided that in true Shakespearean fashion I’d try to ‘suit me all points like a man’”

8 SHAKESPEARE magazine

The play features perhaps Shakespeare’s most inspired use of a golf buggy.

The Taming of the Shrew!

Even the Pedant (Austin Blair) became his own character – in this production, a drunkard who spent most of his time passed out on stage.

Beyond the hours of rehearsal at night, Ryan encouraged all the actors to study the text on their own time. Since poring over Shakespeare encapsulates most of my free time, it was far from a tedious assignment. For other cast members, who didn’t share this passion, it was more of a chore.

Nevertheless, they tackled the challenge with relish and it enlivened their performances. Actors previously unaware of the power of Shakespeare’s words and rhythm were finding it on their own.

“It was really exciting to make discoveries as we did that homework,” says Michael Hardenberg (Tranio). “The metre gives you everything you need, even the character at times.”

with each other are complicated.” My anxiety subsided a little.

I won’t say we did something with Shakespeare that was unheard of, or unique – I’ve seen too many productions to think that – but it was impressive.

Part of Shakespeare’s genius, perhaps the main part, is that he does not tell the story of one, two or even three characters. Every person in his cast has the potential to be the main character of the action. Not only did Ryan know this, but so did each of my fellow cast members.

Over and over, Ryan encouraged us to decide on who our character was, figure out the stereotype, discover ways to go bigger. Gremio (Bob Colbert) became a washed-up mobster who had seen better days. Biondello (Cheyenne Shupp) turned into an over-zealous and hilariously naive stable hand. Vincentio (Tim Spirk) was a Texan oil baron.

“!e metre gives you everything you need, even the character at times”


!The Taming of the Shrew

Tobias Nordlund played Petruchio and struggled with the text before it came good in the end. “My experience with this show and with Shakespeare,” he says, “completely took me by surprise.”

When opening night arrived, we were abuzz with nervous energy. Hell Week of rehearsals lived up to its name, but the production far exceeded our expectations.

The audience roared when Kate (Rachel Ballasy) duct taped the hands of Bianca (Chrisanna Rock), trapping her on a speeding-up treadmill during the interrogation scene. In the wedding scene, I successfully manoeuvred a golf cart on and off the stage to gasps of surprise. And at the end of the road trip scene, when a member of the college faculty came out of the port-a-potty with toilet paper trailing from his feet, the audience erupted with laughter.

Playing Grumio let me fall in love with

Shakespeare and theatre in new ways. Above all, it cemented my belief that anyone, truly anyone, can do Shakespeare – and do it phenomenally – and that is the reason he is still being performed today. Not necessarily because his ideas were that great or his poetry so complex. But because he created characters that can be understood by all people, as long as the proper amount of work and energy is invested into the production.

The cast strove to make each character as three-dimensional as possible.

“Playing Grumio let me fall in love with Shakespeare and theatre in new ways”


FRESH APPROACHES TO ACTING SHAKESPEARE

Original PronunciationCue-scriptsPhysical trainingWorkshops and Consultancy

www.passioninpractice.com@passionpractice

PASSION IN PRACTICE


!Kill Shakespeare

Ultra-vivid, ultra-violent and ultra-cool, Kill Shakespeare is a graphic novel series with added Bard Power. Co-creator Anthony Del Col takes us behind the panels.

Words: Brooke ThomasPortraits: Piper WilliamsArt: Andy Belanger

Serial


Kill Shakespeare!

!

KillerAnthony Del Col, photographed at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, October 2014.

What would you say to a Shakespearean traditionalist who was sceptical about graphic novels?

“About seven years ago I myself was sceptical about comic books and graphic novels. I thought that they were all just superhero stories about men in tights and capes, that sort of thing. Then Conor (McCreery, Kill Shakespeare co-creator), who had been working part time at a comic book shop at that time, started putting some really interesting and provocative titles into my hands. Things like Y: The Last Man, Fables, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Blankets – all these things from different genres. It made me realise how interesting a storytelling medium it actually is.

“With comic books and graphic novels you’re not limited by budgets or anything like that, you’re only limited by your imagination. It’s actually a very thought-provoking medium. Yes, you have the visuals in front of you, but you don’t have all. There are interesting stories being told between the panels.”


!Kill Shakespeare

“I had been told that Shakespeare was the crème de la crème of storytelling, and I thought there must be a reason why”

Witch’s brew: Lady Macbeth, as visualised in Kill Shakespeare.

I know you were considering other mediums back when Kill Shakespeare was just an idea. Are you happy you settled on this one?

“Absolutely. Traditionally Shakespeare is viewed as very highbrow, which is unfortunate, and comic books are perceived as lowbrow. I thought it was poetic to make them meet half-way, to put the highbrow with the lowbrow. Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed, not to be read, and in a lot of classrooms across the world the experience is to have a teacher or someone in the class read it out for you. In the comic book medium we can bring everything to life, even more so than Shakespeare could

himself in some cases. Hamlet meets pirates in the play – it happens offstage but you hear about it. In the very first edition of Kill Shakespeare you actually see this huge pirate battle. You can’t do that on stage. We write Kill Shakespeare, we have Sherlock Holmes vs Harry Houdini – I’ve fallen in love with the medium and I can envision myself writing comics for the next 30 years.” Which of the characters is your favourite to write?

“When we first started, my favourite character was Iago because he’s so deliciously evil and always three or four steps ahead of everyone else. It almost got to a point where


“Iago is so deliciously evil.

He’s always three or four steps ahead of

everyone else”Anthony Del Col

Kill Shakespeare!

Hamlet (left) takes on Romeo in one of Kill Shakespeare’s trademark mash-ups.

!SHAKESPEARE magazine 16

Kill Shakespeare!it felt like he was one or two steps ahead of Conor and myself. As time has gone on, and as the project has expanded into other mediums, Hamlet has become my favourite. I look for Hamlet in everything I watch or consume these days. The way we’ve scripted him in the television outline that we’re putting together right now makes him even more fun to write and I think that I… it’s not that I can fully grasp who Hamlet is, but I feel like I’ve gotten a better handle on who he is and the possibilities for his character.” What’s the plan for TV?

“The goal for a Kill Shakespeare television series would be to combine the dark fantasy world-building of Game of Thrones with the wit and knowledge of Shakespeare in Love. Game of Thrones is a huge success worldwide, and opened many people’s eyes to the power of fantasy. We think doing Kill Shakespeare as television can do the same thing for Shakespeare.” Outside of your own, do you have a favourite adaptation of Hamlet or any of the plays?

“Oh, that’s a good question. I’m gonna go a little off the beaten track, but I do like – it’s not a straight-up adaptation – I’m a huge fan of Shakespeare in Love. Just because it was a way to make Shakespeare accessible and exciting and relevant. I’ll do another cheat, because I am Canadian I have to give a plug for Slings and Arrows.” I adore Slings and Arrows.“For those that are reading this that have not watched it yet, I highly recommend it. In terms of straight adaptations, again because it made Shakespeare relevant for a whole new generation, I’ll say Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. I know it has its fans and its detractors. I love how Baz just throws everything and the kitchen sink into everything that he does. That’s the adaptation – out of film, TV, everything – that I’ve enjoyed and watched and rewatched the most.”

What do you think it is about Shakespeare’s characters that make them so universal?

“Shakespeare was the ultimate humanist. He understood humanity and individuals better than anyone ever has or ever will. The moment that Shakespeare really came to life for me was the first play I ever read in school. It was The Merchant of Venice. Shylock, who is a character who doesn’t necessarily speak to me – but it’s close to my heart – gives the ‘hath not a Jew eyes’ speech which gives you all this sympathy for him. The next minute he wants his ‘pound of flesh.’ So he goes from being a villain to sympathetic to a villain yet again.

“I find that so fascinating, that within a minute you’re able to see all the different facets – good and bad – of a character. That’s why I think his characters have stood the test of time and have been done and redone.”


!Kill Shakespeare

So your first experience of Shakespeare was a positive one?

“Yes and no. I had a horrible teacher who was completely out of her element. The entire class was unruly. We were in Canada and not excited about Shakespeare – it was a negative experience up front. But I had been told by media and people in general that Shakespeare was the crème de la crème of storytelling, and I thought there must be a reason why. So if I’m not going to learn from my teacher, then I’m going to go out and try to figure it out myself. That’s when I started self-guided learning and sought out and read more things about Merchant of Venice and Shylock.”

You’ve just released the Kill Shakespeare table top game, you’re working on TV ideas, what’s next?

“In addition to television I’d like to do a videogame. There are some really fascinating stories being told through this medium. I think they’re called narrative games, where it’s not a first person shooter, it’s more about storytelling and personalities. I’d love to be able to immerse players into a world where you can play as one of Shakespeare’s characters and you get to interact with all the others. In an early brainstorming session, what became the Kill Shakespeare comic was a video game, so I’d love to come back to that and introduce a whole new generation to Shakespeare through that medium.” I would play that.

“I know! There would be so many Shakespeare fans, even those who don’t play video games, who’d be like ‘Wait, what? I get to play as Hamlet? That’s amazing!’ and they’d dive into it. I also want action figures. Kill Shakespeare action figures. Because what Shakespeare fan doesn’t want to have an action figure on their desk of Hamlet, or Othello, or Puck?” Absolutely! So, sky’s the limit, really?

“Sky’s the limit, baby.”

“I’d love to immerse players into a world where you can play as one of Shakespeare’s characters and interact with all the others”

Self-taught man: the young Anthony explored Shakespeare’s works outside of school.


!The Tutor

“I had a lot of fun playing around with Venus and

Adonis because it is such a wonderful

and sexy poem”Andrea Chapin


The Tutor!

Young, ambitious, full of passion… Andrea Chapin’s novel The Tutor features a version of William Shakespeare readers may not have encountered before…

Interview by Mary Finch

!

Reeling in the Years

The Tutor is your debut novel. What were you doing before this?

“When I started The Tutor I had been, for almost 15 years, a book doctor. That is someone who works on other people’s books before they are published, often with an agent or sometimes with an editor. It’s now over 250 novels and memoirs that I have worked on. It’s fairly anonymous, maybe an acknowledgement or line saying thank you, but usually not even that. Because no one wants to publicise that they had someone work on their book before the actual editor worked on it.

“I had been doing that non-stop for quite a while, but I had always wanted to write my own novel and it hadn’t worked out yet. I think I had, in my own journey, reached a point where I was really wondering, ‘Am I going to write my novel or not?’” Was there a catalyst that brought the novel about? “My brother-in-law said at Thanksgiving, ‘Everyone in the theatre world is reading this amazing book, James Shapiro’s A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare:1599!’ I thought it sounded like something I would really like to read. Looking at one year of Shakespeare’s life from many different angles – from the political, from the religious, from the economical. But that was all.

“Then, a couple days before Christmas, I was buying presents, last-minute books to put under the tree. And there, sitting in paperback, was this book my brother-in-law had mentioned to me. So, I bought it, wrapped it up, and put it under the tree for myself.

“It was a larger gift than I had anticipated. When I started reading it, I was completely fascinated, and I was especially fascinated by the prospect of the lost years. What was Shakespeare doing during chunks of his life? I thought to myself, ‘This is the job of a fiction writer – to imagine what Shakespeare was doing!’

“Part of that curiosity goes back to that I have worked with a lot of authors and I have


!The Tutor

Andrea behind

the Shoreditch

pub where the

Curtain Theatre

once stood.

seen their names before then they showed up on the New York Times Bestseller List. I also taught fiction workshops at NYU, and worked with a lot of authors who were just beginning, who were just launching.

“I began mulling over this idea of the lost years and what Shakespeare was doing before his name ever appeared in print. I kept thinking, ‘Even though Shakespeare feels like like a god, a huge force in our world, he was a person’.”

Why did you decide to tell the story from Katharine’s point of view? “I decided I couldn’t write it from a male point of view, and thought, ‘What if I created someone like me? Someone who has worked very collaboratively with authors, helping them create plot lines, really helped them develop their books. What if a character like that worked with Shakespeare? And that is how the whole thing launched. I started fooling around with it, toying with it. And interestingly, I have to say that when I started writing Katharine there was something very magical, almost chemical, about it. The Tutor came from a more honest place in my own voice than anything else I had previously written.” In your story Shakespeare is complex and oftentimes a bit unlikeable. Where did that version of the Bard come from? “I wanted to veer away from the warm and fuzzy Shakespeare. Not that there has been one, but in Shakespeare in Love – which I love – he is just so adorable. I had my own ideas about developing a character that ended up being fairly ruthless and narcissistic, but still very compelling. Sometimes those people can be not the nicest, but still be extremely intriguing and dazzling because of their brilliance.

“While I was doing research, I read a lot about Picasso and Françoise Gilot, one of his partners. She wrote an amazing autobiography about what it was like to be Picasso’s muse. She really is the only one of his muses who escaped with her life in a way. She had to leave him – he was sleeping with someone else but he also couldn’t let go of her.”

“Shakespeare would have gone to Oxford. But his father’s fortunes failed and Shakespeare had to go o! to make money”

!SHAKESPEARE magazine 21

The Tutor!

“I was taken by that aspect of the muse and the artist. And also, when you do read what there is about Shakespeare, it assumed that he didn’t really go home much. Early on he had three children, and by 24 or 25 was probably in an acting company. By 27 or 28 his name appears in London and then he is really in London. He does not return to Stratford as his home until a couple years before he dies.

“What also struck me was the type of ambition that he needed was so huge. I am not saying that every ambitious person is a narcissist, but I played around with the idea that this person had to want it so badly that he would use people, and not be the greatest dad

or husband, because he wanted to get where he wanted to go. And he did!

“Not only to write the sort of poem that he wrote withVenus and Adonis, and get a patron like the Earl of Southampton – that is amazing. But also to decide not to be just a poet, not to be just a player, not to be just a playwright, but actually to be a businessman too and be a part of the company. That shows incredible ambition.” Where do you think that ambition could have come from? “Well, his father. We don’t know if John Shakespeare could read or write, but he held about 15 positions in Stratford, ending up being the equivalent of the mayor of Stratford. That is an ambitious man. Shakespeare saw that. John Shakespeare also applied for a coat of arms, and married up – Mary Arden owned the property his parents worked on. To send your child to grammar school you had to have a certain political standing, and John Shakespeare made sure he had that. Shakespeare had, as a role model, an extremely ambitious man.

“So Shakespeare is someone who saw this ambition and then something happened. Was the father a catholic? Was he a drunk? Was he ill? We don’t know. But something happened and his father stumbled, right at the time when Shakespeare would have gone on to Oxford. Someone with Shakespeare’s skills would have the opportunity, but right at that time his father’s fortunes failed and Shakespeare had to go off to make money, changing everything.” Can you give us a glimpse of your process and research? “In the beginning of all of this, an agent that I doctor for asked if I had read any good books, and, since I had just written the first couple chapters of my book, I mentioned that James Shapiro’s book had kind of changed my life. And she laughed, and said that he was one of her clients. Things progressed, she put us together, and Professor Shapiro was extremely

Andrea Chapin,

photographed by

Ric Kallaher.


!The Tutor

generous in information. I could email him and he opened doors in terms of where I needed to go for research. That was terrific.

“Before I opened Shapiro’s book, I had always enjoyed Shakespeare but I hadn’t been obsessed with Shakespeare. It was when I started digging into the research, and all of his plays, and each sonnet, and then the poems, that I became truly obsessed.

“I felt like I had to familiarise myself with what was going on in literature during that time. I delved into Philip Sidney, and other contemporaries. I went back to Ovid, and often had three different books in front of me with different annotations – the translation that Shakespeare would have used and two

more recent translations. Then, once I went to Ovid, I could see where so much of the poets of the time, certainly Shakespeare, got the seeds that became their works.

“In my journey, I joke that I have given myself at least a master’s, maybe a PhD, in Elizabethan literature and history on my own. I really thought it was important to see what his influences were as much as I could. That’s why I brought them in and had so much fun doing it.” What do you hope readers will take away from your novel? “I would love for my readers to learn about Shakespeare and his life as they, hopefully, enjoy the story. I had a lot of fun playing around with Venus and Adonis because it is such a wonderful and really sexy poem. I would love for readers to become curious about those other works of his.

“Reviews have said that the situation of Kate and the other characters is one we’ve all found ourselves in, like when our friends say, ‘What are you doing with him?’ and someone says, ‘You just don’t understand!’ And that makes me so happy because, overall, I wanted to achieve a story that people could relate to now. I wanted to make these characters not feel ancient or archaic – not just Will and Kate, but the larger context of family and her relations. I wanted them to feel like contemporary folks.”

The Tutor is published in the UK by Penguin on 26 March, priced £7.99

Andrea at Stratford-

upon-Avon’s Holy

Trinity Church.

“I mentioned that James Shapiro’s Shakespeare book had kind of changed my life. And she laughed, and said he was one of her clients”

Travel around 10

Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Library of Birmingham & Hôtel Teatro Theatre Company present a Young REP 18-25 Company production

HamletsBased on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Adapted and directed by Daniel Tyler

Library Of Birmingham

Tue 17 Mar 8:30pm

Wed 18 Mar 8:30pm

Fri 20 Mar 8:30pm

Sat 21 Mar 5:30pm &

8:30pm

£10.00 (£7 Concessions)

!Interview: Ben Crystal

“Irrespective of whether or not it becomes popular, there is nothing a Shakespeare geek is excited more by

than an unexplored area of his !eld”

One of the most admired all-rounders in the Shakespeare world, Ben Crystal reckons we should “speak the speech” the way the Bard did. And that means “from the gut and the groin…”

Interview: Helen Mears Portraits: Piper Williams


Interview: Ben Crystal!

Perhaps best known for his Shakespeare on Toast book and Passion in Practice workshops, Ben Crystal is an actor, writer, producer and director. Alongside his father, linguist David Crystal, he has pioneered the practice of Original Pronunciation, getting as close as he can to how Shakespeare would have sounded to Elizabethan audiences.

Would you define your work as a Shakespearean quest?“Yeah, definitely! I didn’t start out on a quest, I started off wanting to act it more than anything. And then the ideas for the books came up one by one and I became known as the boy who wrote that book. I struggled to get acting auditions for Shakespeare and then, partly though the writing and partly through needing an outlet, I found myself doing more workshops, writing more, exploring more. Finding the issues in both performance and education and in audiences’ perception of Shakespeare and what seemed to be missing, and chasing that down.

“Now, through following this path of spreading the word of the Bard, I’ve explored disciplines like pronunciation, become fascinated by the idea of the original Shakespeare ensemble, found myself with an education programme, an OP programme and a Shakespeare ensemble. If you’d asked me when I was 16 or 17 what my dream was, it would have been to be at the RSC. But you follow the path you’re on, and the path I’m on certainly seems to be a quest. I’m very happy with it.”

Could you explain Original Pronunciation for those who are new to the term?“It’s a recreation of the soundscape, the accents that Shakespeare’s actors spoke in 400 years ago, in the same way as the Globe spaces are

recreations of the original spatial dynamics. It’s a recreation of a sound system, not an attempt to be authentic – because that’s impossible, and there’s only so much you’re going to learn from authenticity. The Globe spaces are as close as we can get to what the spaces looked like, felt like, and we have spent a fair amount of time trying to work out how that can change or improve the way that we act Shakespeare. It’s exactly the same with this sound.”

How do you go about recreating the accent?“It’s based on my father’s scholarly work for The Globe in 2004. He gathered all the evidence he could from three sources. One of these was the rhymes. Often Shakespeare’s rhymes don’t work in a modern accent. To let them rhyme again requires particular types of vowel qualities. That’s one source of data. Then, if you go back to the Folio and the Quartos, they used to spell a lot more like they spoke. So, for example, the word film was spelt philome which is very definitely a two syllable word (fil’um) which you still hear in Northern Ireland. That’s an Elizabethan pronunciation carried over from 400 years ago.

“Then there were people who wrote linguistic-like descriptions of what the accent sounded like. With those three sources of data combined you get to about 90 percent and that last 10 percent drives my father crazy, but he can’t fill it in. I see it as a great advantage because it means that if you and I were to form a Shakespeare company using OP then we would sound 90 percent the same but then that last 10 percent will be filled up with our natural accents, the story, the audible vocal sound of our experiences. Compare that to using RP [Received Pronunciation] which is not tied to a particular geographic location.

“If there is one thing that accent means to people, it’s identity and territory. To me, the idea that Shakespeare should be spoken in this identity-less accent where it flattens out everybody’s character and they all sound the same, takes away its inherent uniqueness.”

!



Ben’s tattoo is a

famous line from

King Lear.

How different does it feel to perform in OP?“Acting in RP versus OP or even in your own natural accent, your actor’s centre will shift. A lot of people find in RP that their centre tends to be around their throat. When I act in my natural accent I find that my centre shifts to my chest. And with OP the centre shifts all the way down to your gut and into your groin. You plant your feet much more firmly on the ground and it tends to lead you to stronger character choices.

“They tend to be earthier, more active

choices and, as a knock-on effect, you tend to move faster as well. You follow Hamlet’s advice to ‘speak the speech trippingly on the tongue’. It ramps everything up and you’re flying around the stage connecting with fellow actors in a vastly different way. One of the final results of all that is that it tends to engage your heart rather than your head. And people tend to find that it’s easier to understand and they tend to get more emotionally engaged. And that’s all we want – to make you laugh, make you cry, bring the audience along with us.”

Do you think OP can attract bigger, more mainstream audiences?“That’s an interesting question. Because of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be spending time on it. But I have to caveat that it’s not a cash bunny. I don’t see it as the sort of a performance quality in Shakespeare that money can be made out of necessarily. I’m excited by it. Irrespective of whether or not it becomes popular, there is nothing a Shakespeare geek is excited more by than an unexplored area of his field.”

Is there a key thing that you’ve discovered by performing in OP?“There are plenty of lost rhymes and lost puns, but the biggest discovery has been more ephemeral, really. More abstract or intangible, because you end up with a different play on your hands. You speak the lines differently and end up with characters who are completely different animals to those you expected. When I did Hamlet there was no question that he was anything like the stereotypical passive, indecisive, boring fellow. He became almost Sherlock Holmesian in the way he was trying to discover the truth. He was active. And that, in part, came from the OP. So we’re rediscovering the plays in new lights, not just the words.”

“OP is a recreation of the accents Shakespeare’s actors spoke in 400 years ago in the same way as the Globe spaces are recreations of the original spatial dynamics.”


“Hamlet became almost Sherlock

Holmesian in the way he was trying to discover the truth. He was active. And that, in part, came

from the OP”



What other interesting things do you think are currently happening Shakespeare-wise?“The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is interesting. There are plans to build a Shakespearean theatre for Shakespeare North. I’m intrigued by the Maxine Peake Hamlet that was up at the Royal Exchange and by the all-female company explorations that have been going on at The Donmar. There’s a lot of younger companies exploring Shakespeare – there’s Smooth Faced Gentlemen, The HandleBards, who go round on bikes. There’s lots of cool, interesting stuff in the underground as well as all the companies running around the country doing open-air Shakespeare. It’s interesting that both the Globe and the RSC have brought

in international companies. The reason we’re having this conversation, the reason there’s a Shakespeare Magazine is that these plays really, really are wonderful. He had a capacity and a knack for exploring the human condition and the way that we think – and why we do the things that we do – in such an amazing way that it’s really hard to get them wrong. And yet we do. There is something that these international companies are tapping into.

“Or maybe it’s tapping into something in us. Because we are both in tandem released from the pressure of ‘how are they going to deliver this famous line?’ I think we are being taught a lot by Europe and Eastern Europe about something that we’re missing with Shakespeare, craft and a long rehearsal period, a return to the ensemble. They are not restricted because they’re not bound to our language and they have a playfulness with it that I think we’re losing.”

You’ve travelled widely, how would you say Shakespeare is perceived around the world?“Away from the UK everyone loves him! It’s a generalisation but it’s not too far off. I do not meet students who dislike him so much overseas but I do encounter this ownership issue that whilst they have a tremendous passion, heart and love for Shakespeare, there is still this idea that ‘We don’t do it right because we don’t have the right sound or we don’t have English training’.

“Americans have embraced OP, though. Because the accent that left London 400 years ago got on the boats and went to the Americas. So when they hear OP they don’t say ‘Oh God, that sounds alien to us’. They hear accent qualities they can relate to and rather than thinking ‘We can’t do Shakespeare because we don’t have that beautiful RP accent. We don’t have any ownership over Shakespeare, even though we love him’, they say ‘Oh my goodness, he actually sounds like us, we can do this’. So it’s no wonder that they’ve embraced it. There is some really, really fascinating work both in the States and across the world. I just wish there was more flow, that more would come over. And, indeed, the other way.”

Interestingly, the

word ‘Crystal’

occurs 20 times

in Shakespeare’s

works.




We’ve mentioned your father, David Crystal. In You Say Potato the relationship between the two of you bounces off the page. What’s it like work with your dad?“It’s a pain in the neck and it is the most wonderful, joyous experience that you could possibly wish for! I came up with the idea for Shakespeare’s Words when I was 22. I was lucky to work with a parent at such a young age. We became friends, and we got to know each other so quickly. He certainly wasn’t used to someone telling him he was wrong. There absolutely were disputes. He taught me how to articulate an argument, he taught me how to articulate myself. I am utterly blessed and feel

lucky to have both that working and familial friendship with him and my mum. And I’m especially lucky that, considering how much of an expert he is, how experienced he is – and that even though sometimes it does take a little bit of shouting – he is always perceptive and open to new ideas.

“You can’t really ask for a better colleague than that. So to be able to take his research on and explore it practically, it’s really wonderful. It’s a celebration of his research and it’s a continuation and an exploration of it that he wouldn’t necessarily be able to do himself. So we are a good partnership in that respect.”

So, if you had one big Shakespearean aspiration, what would it be?“To change the education system, fundamentally, from the top down or the bottom up, whichever way is quickest. To refresh Shakespeare production and performance and the perception of it in a similar way that Gielgud, Olivier, Burton or Branagh has done. I would like very much to spend a considerable amount of time training and forming a company – much like the ensemble I’ve been starting to form – in a Globe-like space, and see where that may take us. To have artistic directorship of a place like The Globe or the Wanamaker, building our own space and recreating a similar sort of dynamic, that would be fine.

“And coming away from these experiences in 20-25 years time and having someone in their twenties or thirties saying ‘Ben Crystal’s wrong, his ideas had their time and now this is where we need to go with Shakespeare’ would be a dream come true.”

Find out more about Ben’s approach to Shakespeare at www.passioninpractice.com

“For my next

trick…” Ben Crystal

prepares to overturn

the education system.

“It’s a celebration of my father’s research and it’s a continuation and an exploration of it”



!Interview: Sara Pascoe

Stand-up comedian, actress, writer, vegan and all-round clever clogs Sara Pascoe is a big fan of the Bard, and she’s not afraid to shout about it.

Interview by Brooke Thomas

Great Shakes!

Studying English at

Sussex University

fostered Sara’s

appreciation of

Shakespeare.


Interview: Sara Pascoe!

!

her in the library at

parties…



“I suddenly realised how clever Shakespeare was and it was mind blowing.”

“How on earth?”“I’ve got an English degree, and a big part of my life at university was throwing off the misunderstandings and misapprehensions I’d had about Shakespeare at school and coming to appreciate him properly. At school I think we got taught Macbeth and King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the teacher would say ‘Oh, you see what he’s saying here? He’s saying this’, and I would think ‘How on earth?’ I just didn’t believe them, I thought the teachers were making it up. Then when I was at university we had to read virtually all of the plays and we went into much more depth. That was when I suddenly realised how clever Shakespeare was, and it was mind-blowing.”

“My favourite play…”“I did love the Sonnets. I think they’re so accessible and they have such universal

themes – death, and time, and how we replicate ourselves. If I had to pick a favourite play… I really loved The Winter’s Tale actually, and I remember thinking Measure for Measure was brilliant, but I think probably Hamlet is my favourite.

“The one I seem to have seen most is As You Like It. I saw an RSC production of Much Ado About Nothing which had Tamsin Greig as Beatrice. They set it I think in Cuba or South America and it was just fantastic, really rhythmic and hilarious.”

“If Shakespeare were here today…”“Shakespeare nowadays? Oh gosh, it would be something incredible, wouldn’t it? He was so fantastic at creating these flawed heroes where you could absolutely see how life had made them behave in a certain way, and because of that behaviour drama just unfolds everywhere around them. He’d put everyone else to shame because he’d be writing comedies and dramas and films all at the same time. Even now, people would probably be saying ‘Is it really just one man? It must be a committee of people doing it secretly!’”

“He always sees the full picture”“I just think he understands human psychology so brilliantly. He understands cause and effect, he understands how people can be trying to be good, but also that their worldview might be slightly too myopic to enable them to see anything larger. However, he as the writer always manages to see the full picture and always, especially in the greatest of the plays, manages to create such a viable world that it doesn’t seem fictional. I recently saw the Macbeth they did at the Globe where they made the play a comedy, very successfully. And I thought that was so fantastic because the ambitions of the Macbeths had such lightness of touch all of a sudden, and the play still held together, it still felt true.”

“Ten Things I Hate About You”“I think what was always surprising, probably because of the age I was when they came out, was finding out that things like Ten Things I Hate About You was The Taming of the Shrew. It’s always great when you think ‘Oh! Yes, I see, it’s that story!’ I’ve been watching House of Cards, and they’ve very clearly jumped off from Macbeth.”

“On being a teenage skateboard fairy”“I do talk about Shakespeare in my show that I’m touring with at the moment. I have a little routine about being told that A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a comedy and how as a 15, 16-year-old having teachers try to say ‘Look, here’s the joke – the queen loves a donkey!’ you just think ‘I don’t get it’. The routine’s about that and how in our production we were trying to liven it up. Everyone wants to do their own ground-breaking thing with Shakespeare, even though it’s all already been done. So I played Puck, but I was on a skateboard and I knocked myself out. Twice. I wasn’t very good at the skateboard. We really thought this was ground-breaking at the time.”


Interview: Sara Pascoe!“He understands how people can be trying to be good, but also that their worldview might be slightly too myopic to enable them to see anything larger”

!

“All about the attitude”“I think that’s what’s so interesting about new productions, they make you meet characters again in a different way. I really like Hermione from A Winter’s Tale. I think that her speeches are so brave and courageous. I’ll always love Kate from The Taming of the Shrew too, but she doesn’t even really talk very much in the play. It’s much more the attitude and the performance of her, isn’t it?

“Beatrice and Benedick’s whole repartee with each other, it’s so brilliant to watch on stage because it doesn’t come across on the page in the same way. Trying to overhear somebody else’s conversation while hiding behind a pot plant, I always think that’s so hysterical.”

“Women with brains and activity and thoughts”“I think in terms of his time he was incredible. This was a time when women weren’t allowed on the stage. To be born a woman and want to be creative was impossible. You couldn’t own property, you couldn’t earn money, you were either born into a rich family to be married off, or you were born with no money and very limited options.

“Shakespeare did write women with brains and activity and thoughts, and I think in some plays the women are as varied as the men in terms of morality and intelligence. Although now for actresses the number of men on stage to the number of women is probably a bit frustrating, it could be a whole lot worse, so I think he should be respected for that.

“Also people are now putting on all-female productions. That’s so exciting because in Shakespeare’s day it would have been an all-male company, and now the opposite is completely possible.”

“Most Shakespeare thing I’ve done…”“This isn’t so much a Shakespeare thing as a me thing, but I’ve been to the RSC twice to do stand-up. I got to do stand-up on the stage at the Swan, and that was amazing. Stratford-upon-Avon is a wonderful place. You walk around thinking ‘Oh my god, this is where Shakespeare was born’. Then I remember that I live in London – where he chose to live.”

Go to sarapascoe.com for Sara’s latest tour dates.

“I played Puck, but I was on a skateboard and I knocked myself out. Twice.”

“Hang on a minute,

is that a person

hiding behind a pot

plant over there?”



Meet thy makers...

Brooke Thomas Our UK Staff Writer is a freelance

writer based in London. She learned to love the Bard during her BA at Royal

Holloway, University of London, and she recently graduated from their MA Shakespeare Studies programme.

You can find Brooke on Twitter @literallygeeked where she hosts a short story competition called #SmallTales

every week.

Mary Finch Our US Staff Writer is in her fourth year studying English

at Messiah College in central Pennsylvania. Will first grabbed her attention in secondary school and

hasn’t let go since – she reads, recites and watches Shakespeare whenever possible. Besides going on irrational adventures to see performances with her friend Alison, Mary also has a

passion for swing dancing, dabbling in calligraphy and tending to her

ever-growing window garden.

Phil Beadle has taught Macbeth at least 20 times (though remains acutely aware it is each new class’s first time).

He has (what he thought was) the French for “Against Nature” tattooed

on his upper arm. As musician, songwriter and lyricist ‘Philip Kane’, he is not averse to stealing lines off the Bard, and his song ‘After the

Shipwreck’ includes the line “We’re just two spent swimmers trying to

hold our heads above the water”. Both he and Ben Walden are contactable via

www.independentthinking.co.uk

Francis RTM Boyle has worked in the theatre for 20 years. He

discovered his love for Shakespeare by reading Julius Caesar when he

was ten. He went on to earn a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and an MLitt and

MFA in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance from the Mary Baldwin College/American Shakespeare Center partnership.

Follow him on Twitter: @FrancisRTMBoyle

Helen Mears teaches English Literature, Film and Media Studies at an FE college in

Ipswich. She has loved Shakespeare since her schooldays and at weekends

can be found volunteering at The Globe or the Sam Wanamaker

Playhouse. She is currently studying for an MA in the Advanced Teaching of Shakespeare. She is at her happiest

when watching Shakespeare, exploring castles and monastic ruins

or listening to Fall Out Boy.

Just some of the contributors to this issue of Shakespeare Magazine

Contributors!

Piper Williams Our Chief Photographer is a freelance fashion

and portrait photographer from Portland, Oregon, now working out of Surrey. He spends his days time-travelling via historical docudramas,

silent films, and vintage radio broadcasts. These adventures are a catalyst for his imagery and his

wardrobe. His current project, 1928, is a modern take on the Jazz and War age aesthetic. Also in the works is a Steam, Diesel and Cosplay inspired series of Shakespearean characters.


Yes! It’s the

Shakespeare MagazineBig Books Giveaway!

William Shakespeare is arguably the most written-about person in history. And, as these four new publications show, he remains the

hottest name in print today. Indeed, these two richly imaginative novels and two lovingly-compiled reference works have all caused tremors of excitement in the Shakespeare Magazine office. So we’ve acquired FIVE copies of each to give away to you, our

esteemed readers...

To be in with a chance of winning one of these books, just send an email to us at

[email protected] with either ‘Tutor’, ‘Aemilia’, ‘DK’ or ‘Oxford’

in the subject line. (Send separate emails if you’d like to win more than one of the titles)

Closing date is Friday 10 April. Best of luck!


!Competition

!e TutorAndrea Chapin(Penguin, £7.99)

As featured in this very issue,

Andrea Chapin’s novel skilfully

imagines the young William

Shakespeare’s missing years in a

gripping and romantic historical

!e Shakespeare Book

Consultant Editor: Professor Stanley Wells(DK, £16.99)

The latest in the award-winning

DK Big Ideas series mixes

powerful graphics with level-

headed text, compiled under

the watchful eye of eminent

Shakespearean Stanley Wells.

Dark AemiliaSally O’Reilly(Myriad, £8.99)

The formidable Aemilia Bassano is

an orphan at the court of Queen

Elizabeth I, where she fatefully

encounters playwright William

Shakespeare in Sally O’Reilly’s

sumptuous novel.

!e Oxford Illustrated

Shakespeare Dictionary

David Crystal and Ben Crystal

(Penguin, £7.99)

Aimed at teenagers, but likely

to appeal to all Shakespeare

fans, this gorgeously-illustrated

tome sees the Crystals bring

Shakespeare’s language alive for a

new generation.

Phil Beadle’s How To Teach series

crownhouse.co.uk

“Beadle’s star continues to rise as one of the most recognisable teachers in the country. The latest addition to Phil Beadle’s How To Teach series, is a practical

guide for teachers to help raise literacy standards, outlining a collection of rules to enable teachers to engage with pupils in a meaningful and productive way.”

The Bookseller Magazine

978-184590393-0 978-178135053-9 978-178135135-2

978-178135128-4 £12.99

New!

Available in paperback and as an eBook


!“To be...”

“!e RSC adaptation has

David Tennant’s Hamlet all alone,

with Ophelia scurrying o" before

the speech”

David Tennant

played Hamlet

with the RSC

in 2008. Here,

he explores the

play for the Sky

Arts series My

Shakespeare.


!

“…or not to be”

“To be...”!

Even people who aren’t sure what a soliloquy is know that Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” is the most famous soliloquy in theatre history. There’s just one problem. It’s not actually a soliloquy.

Words: Francis RTM Boyle

,


!“To be...”

Maxine Peake’s

Hamlet debuted

last year at

Manchester’s

Royal Exchange

Theatre.

“To be or not to be…” Spoken by the title character of Hamlet, the most famous speech in the history of theatre is 34 lines and 271 words long. Apart from providing titles for (or being quoted in) countless other plays, poems, novels, TV shows and movies, it has also appeared on posters, T-shirts, coffee mugs and keyrings. It’s even been translated into Klingon (“taH pagh taHbe”). There are at least 379,000 hits on the internet for the first line alone. This speech is many, many things. One thing it is not, however, is a soliloquy.

The image of the ‘lone prince’, so endemic

on the stage, duly made the transition to TV and motion pictures. Laurence Olivier’s 1948 version placed Hamlet alone on a windswept tower of Elsinore. Grigori Kozintsev’s 1964 version is another lone Hamlet, this time walking along the Danish shore. Franco Zeffirelli’s 1990 film sees Hamlet alone in his father’s sepulchre. Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film places Hamlet in a mirrored hall, practically alone but for Ophelia hiding out of sight. Peter Wellington’s 2003 adaptation of the speech for the series Slings & Arrows features a seated, lone Hamlet. Gregory Doran’s 2009 TV adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet has David Tennant’s Hamlet all alone, with Ophelia scurrying off immediately before the speech and tromping back on just as he finishes saying “Soft you now.”

Despite the entrenchment of the lone Hamlet on our cultural understanding of Hamlet, when we study the six quarto and three folio printings that comprise the original texts, we find the following: one, that the famous speech cannot be a soliloquy; two, that the entering Hamlet should know he is being spied upon; three, that Ophelia’s presence must be addressed; and, fourth and lastly, that Hamlet may be reading as he enters the scene.

My methodology does need some explanation. I believe in the primacy of the text: dramatic texts are the most important factor in creating a production. The words of a text are the skeleton of a play, and basing one’s interpretation on elements not in the text is problematic at best. Now, I’m not trying to say there is only one way of doing any play or moment from a play. I only distinguish between two kinds of performances – those that agree with the text and those that do not.

Soliloquies feature lone speakers, but all nine original Hamlet printings agree that Hamlet is not alone, as Ophelia is also onstage throughout the speech. Therefore, the classical

“All nine original Hamlet printings agree that Hamlet is not alone – Ophelia is also onstage throughout the speech”

!

understanding of “soliloquy” does not apply.Further, the “To be or not to be” speech

features none of the characteristics of Hamlet’s actual soliloquies. In those speeches, he follows a pattern – he speaks about Claudius, the late King Hamlet, and, usually, Gertrude. Hamlet does discuss his family with some other characters, but when he knows he is accompanied by potential spies, he stays away from the topic of his family. The “What a piece of work is a man” speech, delivered just after Hamlet discovers he cannot trust Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, is an elaborate deception. When Hamlet delivers his speech to appease his friends-turned-spies, he does not mention the circumstances of his father’s murder. He only mentions the King and Queen as the people to whom Rosencrantz and Guildenstern must report.

“I will tell you why, so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather.”

Since “To be or not to be” takes place with others on stage, and since it deviates from the

patterns Shakespeare established in Hamlet’s actual soliloquies, it cannot be a soliloquy. Since the speech is not a soliloquy, it cannot be staged as a soliloquy and still be faithful to the text. Text-based stagings focus on what is written. For instance, Hamlet, entering into the scene, knows he is being observed. The original printings agree that, by this moment in the play, Hamlet has discovered that his schoolmates have been dispatched by the King to spy on him. Further, all but one of the printings agree that Hamlet enters into the scene because he has been sent for by the King. The remaining printing, the First Quarto, does not mention this at all. What happens next is a strange division; all folio printings agree that the King and Polonius hide before Hamlet enters, while all quartos state they exit after Hamlet enters.

The quarto texts allow Hamlet to see the King and his crony hide; Hamlet would clearly know he is being spied upon. In all three folio printings, the King and Polonius exit before Hamlet enters the scene. Even if a director chooses the folio option, it is still reasonable that Hamlet knows he is being spied upon. Hamlet already suspects Claudius on some level before the action of the play, as evidenced by his response to the Ghost’s news that Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father: “O my prophetic soul! / Mine uncle?”

The King has just sent for Hamlet. If, as in the folios, Hamlet enters not seeing the King and Polonius, he still has another reason to be suspicious: the King is absent, but Ophelia is directly in his path.

Let’s talk about Ophelia and the issue of the silent actor. In order to stage the scene, we must have a better understanding of Ophelia and her relationship with Hamlet. She has only appeared twice before, in scenes revolving around her relationship with Hamlet. Ophelia speaks on this subject with her father, Polonius, saying her relationship with Hamlet is an honorable and affectionate one that has included every promise, save that of matrimony. Polonius dismisses this as Hamlet merely wanting to master her chaste treasure and commands her to never see Hamlet again.

When Ophelia is placed in Hamlet’s way,

Naeem Hayat is

one of the actors

playing Hamlet

on the Globe

Theatre’s two-

year world tour.

(image: Bronwen

Sharp)


“To be...”!

she is being used to provoke her boyfriend into showing why he is behaving so strangely. This is part of Polonius’ plan to discover if Hamlet is mad for his daughter’s love. Claudius accedes to the plan and, immediately before Hamlet’s entrance, describes his plan to Gertrude, that Hamlet should “affront” Ophelia.

The meaning of the word “affront” is crucial: “to put oneself in the way of so as to meet; to accost, address.” By strategically placing Ophelia onstage, Polonius and Claudius mean for her to come face to face with Hamlet so they can hear what follows between them. As a result, Ophelia could be Hamlet’s audience, either in part or in whole.

Before this passionate meeting, there is one more discovery to address: what Hamlet is doing as he enters the scene. The First Quarto offers a fascinating option. In it, before Hamlet enters for “To be or not to be”, the King says,

“see where he comes poring upon a book.” This is similar to Gertrude’s statement in an earlier scene, “But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading,” which appears in all other printings of the story. It may be the First Quarto misplaces Hamlet’s entrance, but this anomaly bears study. Hamlet does have a book in other scenes, so a Hamlet who enters reading can be textually valid. In fact, the book he reads may still exist.

Douce in 1839 and Hunter in 1845 noted that Girolamo Cardano’s 1576 book Comfort includes passages very similar to a portion of Hamlet’s speech:

“…saying, that [death] did not only remove sickness and all other griefs but… what should we accompt of death to be resembled to anything better then sleep… and to die is said to sleep.” Compare all this talk of death, the easing of griefs, and sleeping to this famous portion of Hamlet’s speech:

“To die – to sleep,No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache and the thousand natural

shocksThat flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep…”

A reading Hamlet opens up a new possibility to the speech. If Hamlet is reading about death, his speech might refer to the book. Shakespeare gives us a similar situation in Henry IV, Part One, where, examining a letter from a confederate, Hotspur reads a phrase and then makes a scathing response. If this formula were applied to Hamlet’s speech, “the question” may refer to ideas raised in the book itself. A staging using this reading can allow the prop to help explain why Hamlet is in this frame of mind.

Studying the original texts with a respect for their primacy reveals that the cherished long-established vision of Hamlet simply does not agree with the text. The options revealed by the text and its established circumstances are

New production

Women Playing

Hamlet offers a fresh

take on “To be or

not to be”.

“Since the speech is not a soliloquy, it cannot be staged as a soliloquy and still be faithful to the text”


!“To be...”

many and must be explored in a production. After studying the evidence, I staged the scene two different ways. In the first, Hamlet entered reading, responded to the book like Hotspur in Henry IV, and discussed the contents with Ophelia. In the second staging, I took Hamlet’s book away, allowed him to see Claudius and Polonius exit, and had him confess his dark thoughts to Ophelia.

The first staging was greatly intellectual. Hamlet mused about the ideas of death, sharing them on that level with Ophelia. This Hamlet is the consummate philosopher, matching wits with Ophelia and even referring to the book she is carrying. The concepts of death and release are explored with great cerebral impact, so much so that, in directing a full production, I can easily see Hamlet reading voraciously through the early stages of the play.

The second staging focused upon the circumstances of the characters. Hamlet, knowing he is spied upon, takes refuge in the arms of his forbidden love but is unable to tell her the whole truth of his problems. Ophelia, torn by duty to her father, her King, and her love, must react to Hamlet’s considering death and suicide. This staging speaks to the troubles as written by Shakespeare and had great emotional and visceral impact. Similar to the first staging, I can see a full production of this sort of Hamlet.

These are two very different interpretations of the “To be or not to be” speech, but it is vital to remember they are both based on Shakespeare’s texts.

“So what?” you may be thinking. “Why is this important?” Well, for hundreds of years the theatre world has embraced a version of Hamlet that does not agree with the words Shakespeare wrote. Elsewhere in Hamlet, Shakespeare commands “suit the action to the word”, charging us to base our versions of his work on the words he left behind. He did the job of a playwright well, creating the skeleton of his plays. It falls to us to give that skeleton a heart, a soul, and scars.


“To be...”!

“Ophelia says her relationship with Hamlet

is honourable. Polonius dismisses this as Hamlet

merely wanting to master her chaste treasure”

Rory Kinnear played

Hamlet at the

National Theatre in

2010.


!Interview: Ben Walden

“OncemoreuntotheTEACH...”


Interview: Ben Walden!

!

“He has kill’d me, mother.”

I have witnessed this epitome of weakness delivered so thoughtlessly as to render the desolation of Macduff as kindergarten mawkish. The forlorn bleat of an innocent without a name as he’s descended into the writhing masterpiece of eternity comes usually in Disneyfied pastels. Not so the last time I was in the same dark room as this line. I sat, horrified, on an uncomfortable bench with two of my three sons flanking me, both of them rigid with fear as The Porter brutally slammed down a trapdoor, through which, milliseconds ago hard light shone, disappearing it, and along with it the anguished cry of the death of promise. The second time I met Ben Walden the conversation went like this: Ben: “What did you think?”

Phil: “Yeah, it was great. Really good.” Language can be drivel. What I had meant to say about the touring version of Macbeth that I’d just seen in Deptford that Ben directed was that it had all the visceral thrill and panic-inducing horror of the Hellraiser films. But I didn’t. The reason my words disappointed me so particularly is that the first time I met Ben Walden I thought he may well have been one of the coolest people I’ve ever encountered. Unassuming in a pastel V-neck in a circle of middle-aged white men of above-average professional capital at the AGM of the firm we both work for, Independent Thinking Ltd, he introduces himself in anger: fists of tears which he cannot and vehemently will not suppress roll down his cheeks. The object of his anger? What the proud philistine Michael Gove – He’s dead. He’s dead. That B-movie, lowlife, literate bozo is dead! – is doing to arts provision and education for working class children. I understand the anger that gave

Actor Ben Walden is a man on

a mission to educate and inspire.

And his weapon of choice is

Shakespeare. All of which makes

him the perfect candidate for a

rare interview by award-winning

teacher, author and contrarian

Phil Beadle.

Images courtesy of European Council of International Schools


!Interview: Ben Walden

“Ben’s version of Macbeth had the visceral thrill and panic-inducing horror of the Hellraiser !lms”

“For me, people should speak what they feel, and because of this Edgar’s line in King Lear reverberates strongly with me”Ben Walden

vent to his tears, as I feel it acutely myself.The third time I met Ben Walden I left a

decade-and-a-half old yellow corduroy jacket containing my phone and house keys in a pub in East Grinstead. I couldn’t be bothered to go down there to pick it up, and miss it still. I then left the notes for this interview in Montenegro (it’s a long story) and that is why this interview is five months late.

I had met with him to discuss the impact of Shakespeare on his life. If you do not know who Ben Walden is, and you should, he was a member of Mark Rylance’s original company when the Globe opened, is an actor of seriousness and note, and now runs a company, Contender Charlie, whose mission is to bring the power of Shakespeare’s text to inner city kids, and who subsidises this work, which they do for next to nothing, by giving presentations to corporate clients on what they can learn about leadership from Henry V. I ask him some penetrating questions: Phil: “What lessons from the plays have you applied to you own life?”

Ben: “I was sent to a boarding school when I was a kid, and as a result have always despised not only the concept, but the human manifestation of ‘repressed Englishness’: their reticence, their poison, their cowardice. For me, people should speak what they feel, and

because of this Edgar’s line in King Lear – ‘The weight of this sad time we must obey. Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say” – reverberates strongly with me.” Phil: “How much of the language infiltrates your own day-to-day expression?”

Ben: “The best way to explain this, Phil, would be for you to watch Kate Tempest’s ‘My Shakespeare’.” [I watch it five months after our meeting, after my notes finally return from their sojourn in the former Eastern bloc. I don’t buy Kate Tempest as a performer, but the passion is clear, as is the fact that she’s distanced being a drama school cockney infecting culture with lies. “He’s not something boring taught in classrooms in language that’s hard to understand. He’s not just a feeling of inadequacy when you sit for an exam”]. Phil: “Tell me the shape of your year?” Ben: “There’s a lot of airports. And those gigs that require air travel pay for the work we do with kids from different environments.” Phil: “What different environments? What do Contender Charlie do… in exactly seven words?”

Ben: “Help kids find purpose and meaning. Can I have four more?”

Phil: “Grudgingly…”

Ben: “…By examining their feelings.” Phil: “What are your feelings about the philistinism of Gove trying to make drama and the performing arts not formal GCSEs?”


Interview: Ben Walden! Ben: “For me, whether Shakespeare is on the curriculum or not is an irrelevance. Humans are naturally ritualistic. Making drama not a ‘proper’ GCSE doesn’t change that. People will still seek the spiritual. Shakespeare, himself, was a deeply spiritual anarchist, in touch with our deepest nature. His work remains vital no matter what space policy-makers have him in this week. Kids will always connect with it like I did. Shakespeare came close to saving my life. When I was overwhelmed as a young adult, I would read a speech for solace and read it again and again. The transient whims of policy-makers are just that.”

Phil: “Put the four great tragedies in order of something other than their greatness.”

Ben: “Can I put them in the order of how much I like them?”

Phil: (Murmurs assent)

Ben: “Lear, I give 11/10, Macbeth 10/10, Othello 9/10 and Hamlet 8/10.”

Phil: “Harsh on Hamlet?” Ben: “It’s arrogant playwriting. And he is self-indulgent as a character. It is really Shakespeare examining depressed adolescence. Hamlet is caught in his own depression and his own pain, and is a bad lesson. In life, you have to rise above your own pain to see the profundity in and of everything – to see the ‘special providence in the fall of a sparrow’. True wisdom is in being truly present emotionally, facing pain and meeting it head on. Truly wise people don’t fall off the wire.”

Go to www.contendercharlie.com for more on Ben Walden and his work.

“Shakespeare came close to saving my

life. When I was overwhelmed as a

young adult, I would read a speech for

solace”Ben Walden

Ben speaks at the ECIS Annual Conference in Nice, 2014.

Next issueWe hope you’ve enjoyed Issue Six of Shakespeare Magazine.

Here’s a taste of what we have coming up next time…

My ShakespeareThe TV series that gets under Shakespeare’s skin.

!Opera ShakesOur guide to Shakespeare’s greatest opera hits.

!Turn’d TurkExploring what Shakespeare means in Turkey.

!High Treason!The real story of Shakespeare and the Essex Revolt.

!

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Shakespeare Magazine 06