Shakespeare is dead to me

Sometimes you just have to take a stand, resist outside pressure and say what you really think. So here goes: I never want to watch another play by Shakespeare. The last one I went to see was King Lear at the Globe Theatre on the Southbank in London. The theatre is beautiful, so atmospheric with curving wooden balconies, hard seats and an open-air mosh pit directly in front of the stage. Although I have to admit that I was sitting on a cushion, safely under cover. If I’m honest, my favourite sort of atmosphere is warm, dry and comfortable.

But the play, really. One of the saving graces of Shakespearean drama is the fabulous costumes, but this was a modern-day adaptation, so I didn’t even have gorgeous clothes to distract me. King Lear is, of course, a tragedy, so you can guarantee that a pile of bodies will be cluttering up the stage by the end. Essentially, the plot revolves around the king and his three daughters, two of whom are scheming, lying flatterers, while the third is the only one to tell him the truth. Naturally, the honest one is banished, the two deceitful ones inherit his kingdom and then reveal their true colours. I can’t quite remember how it happens, but the king ends up wandering through a storm accompanied only by his fool and a faithful supporter in disguise. (I can never understand how all those Shakespearean characters manage to disguise themselves so well that people who’ve known them for years don’t recognise them.) Understandably, madness ensues. Well, it would, wouldn’t it?

As for the comedies, are they really funny? The audience feels obliged to laugh to show that they really do understand what’s going on, but we all know that comedy doesn’t age well. Most comedy from the 1990s is embarrassingly dated and un-funny, so there’s really not much hope for the jokes that had them rolling in the aisles in the 1590s.

Before the entire UK population rises up to evict me from my native land, I must stress that I am full of admiration for Shakespeare’s facility with the English language. The beauty and wisdom of his prose can’t be denied. Who can compete with him? “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”  “Expectation is the root of all heartache.”  “If we are true to ourselves, we cannot be false to anyone.” All perfectly expressed and full of humanity. My favourite is possibly: “All the world’s a stage, All the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts”.

These are the peaks and they’re certainly high, but this level can’t be sustained throughout and I find when I attend one of Shakespeare’s plays that my mind often wanders and then snaps to attention when I hear a famous bit. I’m afraid I’m the same at the opera, just waiting for the well-known arias. All I’m really interested in is the greatest hits. Needless to say, I don’t go to the opera either.

So there you have it – Shakespeare and opera both wasted on me. I am unashamed and even prepared to shamelessly quote the man himself on my behalf:  “Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”