Is Shakespeare Meant to be Read and Not Performed?
After quite a few mentions to this topic in the last few posts on The Shakespeare Blog – the first being For Readers’ Eyes Only – I thought I should join in on the discussion and give my three cents.
Everyone is, of course, entitled to their opinion about a piece of art… but those who claim that Shakespeare’s works are not meant to be performed just annoy me. If he wasn’t meant to be performed, I’m obviously not down a good career path!
The fact is that drama was did not have a widespread appeal as reading material until well after Shakespeare. George Bernard Shaw championed that cause to an extent. But until then, plays were written to be performed. Tons of them. Theatre was a very popular forms of visual entertainment in Shakespeare’s time… no TV!
Now one of the arguments brought up against Shakespeare being performed is that “language itself is so complex and rich that physicalization only serves to obfuscate the meaning of the text.” Yes, the language is complex. No, an audience won’t understand everything. BUT the significance of each individual word is of minute importance in relation to the entirety of a whole play. The important part is to understand the story to entertain, and to provoke thought. I don’t know about you, but I always seem to be much more entertained, understand more, and be more apt to think when I see a quality full fledged production of Shakespeare, rather than just reading silently. Yes, there are advantages to reading and studying the text on your own. But is Shakespeare not meant to be performed at all!? I don’t think so. No way.
Now just because we have TV and movies today doesn’t mean that we can put Shakespeare in a book and forget about the stage. Theatre is still a living art form. Shakespeare’s words don’t really LIVE unless they are spoken in performance, as intended.
Posted on January 13, 2008
mdmax980 Jan 13, 2008
very good points. Now, I’d like to play devils advocate and throw this at you:
They also say roughly 7% of our communication is all speech, the rest (a large 93%) is based on non-verbal communication, which consists of body language, environment, and the receivers own psychological makeup. when we read a story, we’re given 7% of the communication. the rest is made up through our imagination of how we picture the characters and how they behave.
When we watch a Shakespeare performance the whole 100% is thrown at us, which doesn’t give us, the audience/reader, the necessary freedom that we would get when reading a piece.
I’m all for plays being performed rather than read whether it be Shakespeare or not, but I’m curious on your thoughts on this.
Gedaly Jan 13, 2008
I think I can argue both sides with that info – when you’re just reading the play you’re only getting 7% of the experience and you can’t imagine everything that’s happening. Some passages of text won’t make sense unless they’re spoken, or some scenes can’t be fully appreciated or understood unless they are seen.
On the other side – not all of the text will be understood when it’s spoken onstage. Even in the best productions actors will skim over sections very quickly and the audience will miss some bits. In that case, you will get the bonus of being able to enjoy all the words when reading it to yourself.
Just to stretch things further, in my opinion Shakespeare’s characters’ communication is much more than 7% speech. Today our words and actions often run contrary to eachother. Unlike modern drama and modern people, Shakespeare’s characters’ thoughts, emotions, and actions are inextricably tied to their words.
But what I will constantly reiterate is that Shakespeare is a piece of theatre. Shakespeare SHOULD be read and studied and meditated over. But it should ALSO be performed. I don’t think one could really exist without the other.
Duane Jan 13, 2008
I’m in the “reader” camp for one very specific and simple reason – Shakespeare’s dead. We have no idea what he meant for a performance to look like. So to say that it was meant to be performed, not read, is no longer accurate – while we may be reading the same words he wrote 400 years ago, it is impossible for us to see the same performance. I agree that’s it’s true in general – plays are meant to be performed, not read. For the most part. Yes, true. But we’re not talking in generics, we’re talking Shakespeare. If you want to fully appreciate the value in what the man wrote, you’ll find that in the words, not in seeing somebody else’s interpretation of them.
Matt Jan 15, 2008
Duane, I have to disagree with you. That’s an invalidation of playwriting in general. What is a play if not a piece of work to be performed, each time a different interpretation by a different creative team. Shakespeare’s not the only dead playwright, after all.
Matt Jan 15, 2008
mdmax980′s comments are no more true for Shakespeare than they are for any playwright, so are you advocating that _any_ play is better off being read than performed?
Of course, there’s a place for reading. In fact, performing the plays would be impossible without close reading and literary analysis and interpretation.
Andrew Hamm Mar 10, 2008
Shakespeare wrote plays for a largely illiterate audience with no concept of reading anything longer than a pamphlet. This is, of course, one of the ways in which his world was almost identical to ours.
The book is the enemy. Play it, watch it, hear it, experience it. Reading it as a book is ludicrous.
Nancy May 11, 2009
I saw a similar post about this on another blog so it just goes to show you that it is a small world after all (I hate that Disney ride).