William Shakespeare’s Covfefe Moments

William Shakespeare is generally regarded as one of the most, if not the most influential wordsmiths in the English Language. And I am not even going to get into the argument about who actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays and poems. For the purposes of this article whenever I say Shakespeare I mean whoever Wrote Shakespeare’s stuff regardless of whether it was Shakespeare, the Earl of Oxford, Francis Bacon, or Queen Elizabeth. (Though I will say, it is awfully easy to come up with a conspiracy theory 400 years after the fact when 90% of the evidence that would have shed light on it has been lost. How come no one was questioning the authorship 400 years ago? But I digress . . .)

Why does Shakespeare still have such a powerful influence on us 400 years later? Why are we still making movies out of his plays? Some movies follow Shakespeare’s script fairly faithfully, while others are complete re-imaginings that are only loosely based on his plot, like the 1956 Sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet.  I just checked the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) and there are over 1300 movies or TV productions based on Shakespeare’s plays. And more to come, there are at least 25 movies in the works that are based on Shakespeare plays. It is still regularly performed on the professional stages and on amateur stages (I myself have been in ten community theatre productions of his plays).

A lot of people were forced to read Shakespeare in school and hated every minute of it. If you were one of those people, you probably find it baffling that so much Shakespeare is still done today.  It has archaic language and half the time even if you understand the words, he is talking about things for which you have no clue. But if you were forced to read it, there is a reason that you hated it. First of all anytime you are forced to do anything, it does not lend itself to being a joyful experience. But the main reason is: Shakespeare’s plays were not meant to be read. They were meant to be seen in performance by an audience. It is sort of like reading the lyrics of your favorite pop song. It is not the same as hearing it performed.

Art is not necessarily about conveying information. It is really about eliciting an emotional response from an audience. But how can you get an emotional response if you don’t know what the blasted words mean? Ah. That’s what the actors are for. It is the actor’s job to figure out what those words, expressions, metaphors, and poetical phrases mean. If the actor knows what she/he is saying, then they can convey that to the audience, sometimes overtly through gestures and expressions, and sometimes on a more subconscious level. The audience does not have to understand the literal meaning of every word. Remember that what the play is going for is an emotional response. The audience needs to understand on an emotional level what the character is going through.

Figuring out what everything means is not always easy. It takes homework. First the actor has to examine the context that the word or phrase is in to try to figure it out for him/herself. If that doesn’t work there is always the director who may have an idea. If that doesn’t work, there are books or online resources. But if you are an actor and you find yourself in one of the rare occasions when nothing answers the question . . . well, you have to make something up. Because everything you say has to have meaning. They can’t be just words. Now, you don’t just make up anything. You have to do it intelligently. Whatever you make up for the meaning of the word or phrase, has to be consistent with the character, the scene, the play and the director’s vision. This situation can happen because Shakespeare was often commenting on things that were in the news 400 years ago. An Elizabethan audience would have been keenly aware of a sly reference to the Gunpowder Plot. The Gunpowder Plot is at least is something the history books are aware of. But how many scandals or foibles or embarrassments were going on that the Elizabethans knew, but never made it to the history books? It is like if I were to write a play today and make a mention of “covfefe”. If someone were performing my play 400 years from now (I should be so lucky) they would have no clue what I was referring to (I hope). If you don’t know what covfefe is, look it up on that newfangled internet thing.

I said the actor will convey the meaning to the audience, and I think this conveyance happens more easily in a live performance rather that in a movie. Why? I don’t know. You would think in a movie the camera can zoom right in to an actor’s face, so you can see facial expressions and hear the subtlest of voice changes even better than what an audience can see and hear in a live performance. All I know is that it works out that way. Perhaps there is a more intangible energy that a person sitting in the audience can pick up from the actors and even their fellow audience members. Whatever it is, it is real. Anyone who has ever seen a live production and has also seen a movie of the same play will tell you the same thing.

So if you think you hate Shakespeare based on your school experience, I encourage you to take in a live performance. If you are already a fan of Shakespeare, the next time you are enjoying a performance I want you to think about all the work the actors had to go through to bring it to you.

(My novel Starliner, which does not have too much to do with Shakespeare, is now available as an ebook through Copypastapublishing.com, or Amazon.com. For those who like to turn physical pages, the paperback will be out in October).