ShakesYear – Kick Off!

Greetings to you all! I have called 2016 ShakesYear, and have decided to spend the entire year in the company of the Bard, William Shakespeare and re-visit his works, sharing some of my thoughts on both these and Shakespeare in general. He has been an inspiration, a guide, a subject of study and a huge influence in my life since I first encountered him as a teenager. Aside from his plays and poems I have read dozens of books about him, seen many, many films and plays, played numerous of his characters myself and directed others, talked about him to anyone who’ll listen and once even played Shakespeare himself in a one-man show about his life. But this year –the 400th anniversary of his death– I thought I’d do something that I have found to be incredibly rewarding in the case of other writers and artists. I call it CHRONOPRECIATION. Now don’t be alarmed; that’s just a word I coined (Shakespeare did this all the time when there wasn’t a fitting word around already). Chronopreciation simply means Chronological Appreciation and it entails working one’s way chronologically through the output of an author, composer, artist etc., starting at the beginning of that person’s artistic life and reading (or listening to or watching) each piece of work in the order it was written, or composed or made. I first started this method with the films of one of my favourite directors, Alfred Hitchcock, and I was astounded to discover just how much one film informed or influenced the next one in his canon and gave me a richer understanding and appreciation of not only each individual film (most of which I had seen many times before), but also of the whole body of his work. I then tried this method with Noël Coward (another favourite of mine), reading through his plays, stories, lyrics etc chronologically through the course of 2014. Last year I did it with Ibsen! It seemed only natural that this year it should be Shakespeare. I thoroughly recommend and encourage this way of really getting to know one’s favourite author, writer, composer, artist –whoever, especially if you think you already know everything about that person’s work. Usually we stumble across a book or play or film or album in a fairly random way, perhaps because someone has recommended it, and then if we like it, we search out other work by that person –the well-known pieces first, usually, and then maybe the lesser known or more obscure works. But it’s usually pot-luck what we find first and what we are exposed to next, and it’s seldom a structured activity. Chronopreciation (that word again!) is all about structure, but it’s not meant to be a restraint in any way. For a completist, it’s enormously satisfying, because it covers all those annoying gaps in the list of books to read, music to listen to, films to see etc. And, let’s face it, there’s a certain sense of achievment in getting through a whole list –any list! It takes a wee bit of planning and one has to have time, of course –there is no gain from rushing through a writer’s work as quickly as possible merely as a kind of challenge, for savouring each piece of work, reflecting on it, reading up on it is part of the pleasure and affords a richer appreciation of that artist’s work. You can decide how long you want to spend on the project or have no set schedule, but a year is a good frame to go by and is pretty adequate for most writers etc. Shakespeare wrote around 37 plays plus a good number of poems/sonnets. 37 plays to read in the course of year -that's certainly achievable. Ibsen wrote 27 plays, so I had about two weeks on each of those last year; with Shakespeare I have around ten days to get through each play and associated material (films, criticism etc.). Many of the plays I know very well already while some are less familiar, and there are one or two I have never actually read, even though I know of them by reputation or from stage productions; King Lear, for instance –a shocking admission, I know, but I have always ”saved” it for some reason! Inevitably when one starts at the beginning of an artistic career there will be lesser works to get through first, but this is precisely why chronopreciation is so valuable; works that may seem dreadfully trite or half-rate when read in isolation suddenly take on a new significance when seen in the context of the preceding work or the one that follows in the author’s canon –we experience the development of the artist and gain a door to the working of his creative mind. Shakespeare's early plays (especially the comedies) are sometimes dismissed grudgingly as mere curiosities –crude, dated and insignificant. Well, I happen to disagree. Of course, there are plays that work better than others, things that are harder to appreciate or fully grasp today or that actually aren't as good as what comes later, but I find the lesser plays just as interesting as the "masterpieces" –in many ways more so because we have been less exposed to them. I'll give each play my own mark, but both these and everything I write here is, of course, subjective and I am quite happy knowing that many people may have different views. Shakespeare can bear it! Ok, now the problems: With Shakespeare there is no worldwide consensus on the exact chronological order of his work, especially when it comes to the early plays. This is a whole field of scholarship in itself, but after reading up on the arguments for this and that view I have decided to follow the chronological list as set out in the excellent Oxford Shakespeare (Collected Edition) edited by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Where there are different versions of a particular play I shall attempt to read through each. The sonnets and poems have their place in the chronology too. As for the actual volumes I will be using –well, finally I get the chance to raid my Shakespeare bookshelf and dig out all sorts of volumes that have been patiently standing there, waiting for their day! I have over the years collected dozens of different editions of individual plays, so I will try to encompass as many of the different series that I can through the course of my reading. In the few cases where I don’t have a single-edition version of a particular play I will revert to one of my two ”collected versions” –those foreboding volumes that so many people have on their shelves but seldom take down because they’re usually printed so densely that they scare off the casual browser. I’ll be presenting the various editions and plays as I go through them, and also some other Shakespeare books and bits and pieces that I find fun and useful. I’ll also try to add my thoughts on as many of the productions and films I see this year. And some thoughts on Shakespeare himself along the way. You're welcome to add any comments, of course. Finally, I have always felt that Shakespeare is best appreciated when read aloud rather than silently. As an actor I read almost any text that looks like a script aloud anyway by instinct, but with Shakespeare the words and lines really come alive when they are lifted from the paper. And for some plays, I’ll try to read in appropriate settings (I did this with Ibsen to good effect) –a forest for As You Like It, a castle for Hamlet etc. So if you happen to see and hear a starry-eyed actor reading aloud from a volume of Shakespeare in your neighbourhood, don’t be alarmed; it might just be me!