Historically, the title role in Hamlet is rarely played as a young guy. The thinking is that by the time you’re old enough to understand all the makes the character tick, you are too old to play him. Whether that is fair or not (to say nothing of true), Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s plays often sought for recapture by the young (I guess they don’t relate as well to an old guy in a land war with his three daughters).

One writer has taken this idea one step further. He has rewritten Hamlet as a young adult novel, specifically portraying him as an adolescent. Wait a second, isn’t Hamlet supposed to be some crazy-brilliant, superstud? Isn’t he the original Dark Knight? What does it do to the character if he’s a geeky, awkward high schooler?

Obviously, in this case, one of the goals is to connect Shakespeare to a youth market, but the question raised by the book bears asking of the play itself. Even when described as an antihero, the word “hero” still hangs about Hamlet. He is a Prince after all, which means that he is an Important Person who must make Important Choices, right? What if he isn’t? What if he’s a young kid, as mixed up as any of us were at that age, who is simply having difficulty sorting himself out? A Hamlet of this nature would be far more earthbound than his reputation suggests. Given the legacy the play and the character have, can we tolerate and believe a Hamlet whose just an ordinary kid?

If you are a fan of really obscure poetic references, then last night’s Tony Awards must have been a hoot for you. On the heels of Lauren Hutton’s psychotic break during the meaningless A-List Awards, actor Mark Rylance chose to recite poetry rather than issue any kind of formal thanks for the Best Actor in a Play Tony he won yesterday. The moment elicited both chuckles and head scratches from the audience in an evening when most of the expected victors claimed their prizes.

Rylance’s win also came at a high price to Shakespeare fans. Patrick Stewart’s highly regarded interpretation of the title role in Macbeth was bested by the performance of quirky poet Rylance. In addition, Stewart’s nefarious leading lady also walked away awardless. In fact, the entire production was shut out, not claiming a single victory.

Whether kooky or just cheeky, Rylance is a fine actor, so it is hard to begrudge him. Furthermore, he has also racked up a ginormous resume of Shakespearean work himself. Still, his win for a revival of a little-known farce seems like a bit of a letdown. At the very least, it might have been nice for the Tony audience to have been treated to a performance of a scene between Stewart’s Macbeth and Lady M. I know it would have been challenging because it would have cut into the valuable time they spent staging musical numbers every five seconds, including those from plays that have been around for OVER A DECADE! Sorry, I didn’t mean to raise my voice, but the Bard got robbed.

A recent news item brought up an interesting theory: that there are two opposing camps in Shakespearean production whether very little middle ground between them. On one side are those that argue the only way to do Shakespeare is to make it modern. This usually involves a high-concept production that resets the action in a different context, culture or time to explore themes within the play and/or make it more relevant. The other side favors a more traditional interpretation of the material, although as the article points out, what does traditional mean?

As the author notes, historical accuracy was not terribly important to Elizabethan theatre, so should a play like Julius Caesar be performed in togas or doublets to make it “traditional?” The writer also notes that the appearance of women and actors of color in Shakespearean productions also deviates from the practices of Shakespeare’s time. Perhaps in twenty-first-century terms, traditional should be understood as less overtly conceptual. If there is no obvious disjunction between design elements and the location and period of the play itself, we could call it more traditional. Although, a production of Julius Caesar in togas on an empty stage falls somewhere in the middle. The costumes might be “period,” but the setting is wholly abstract. Furthermore, the decision to perform a play in period is still a conceptual choice, especially if you look at it as a response to the more wildly theatrical variations. Perhaps tradition has less to do with William Shakespeare and more to do with the individual audience member’s appraisal.

British thespians Emma Fielding and Simon Russell Beale got a rare honor, even among noted actors. The two had the opportunity to pore over a copy of the First Folio. Originally printed in 1623, the First Folio is a kind of sacred tome for those in the Shakespearean community. With price tags in the millions, there are only about two hundred extant copies of the roughly one thousand originally printed. In honor of the Bard’s birthday, the two talked about the Folio, along with questions of authorial intent and textual integrity.

One of the key issues to emerge from their discussion was the ages-old debate about which texts are the correct versions. Since there are lines and scenes in some of the quarto versions of the plays, many ponder who made the edits – Shakespeare, the compilers of the Folio, or other unknown parties. Beale and Fielding note that it was quite likely Shakespeare made changes to the plays after the initial runs, particularly to tailor them to specific actors. So, if Shakespeare made some of the edits, to we trust his judgment or include the omitted/altered bits? If we aren’t sure who changed what, how do we decide what to do in production?

It might seem nitpicky, but some Shakespearean scholars would go eighteen rounds to fight over whether Hamlet wanted is “sullied” or “solid” flesh to melt. Beale and Fielding seem to take a more balanced approach, noting the Folio as simply another resource to Shakespeare fans and scholars.

In Shakespearean debates, some people are consumed by absolutes. If the “market” of Shakespearean scholarship is fully saturated (or even over-saturated), absolutes can be very, very useful. After all, Elizabethan England is an iffy place, historically speaking, and with Shakespeare there are even fewer sureties. For a scholar to be able to present an idea as fact will set her apart from the crowd. In a sea of theories and possibilities, this oasis of knowledge would be notable (if skeptically received).

This idea of facts dovetails with questions of the purity of text in Shakespeare’s plays. Since we have multiple versions of many of his plays, the question for artists and scholars remains which texts are the “right” ones? For others, this is less of a problem. It is common practice for productions to cobble together a version of the play based on the preferences of the participants and the concept of the production. A new project that will make all of the quarto copies of Shakespeare’s plays available online will simplify this editing process.

Or will it? Does the practice of piecing together texts further obscure any potential for finding a pure or true source? The “absolutist” would most definitely balk at this approach. For them, pure texts are the Holy Grail of Shakespearean studies. The more the texts are combined and re-combined, the further the identity of The Bard will be obscured. Could Shakespeare become a symbolic figure rather than an historical one?

Postmodern Essays on Love, Sex, and Marriage in Shakespeare is a mouthful of a title, which is appropriate given the topics it tackles. This new collection of essays seeks to examine the romantic relationships conjured by Will from Stratford. Some of the articles look at conventions of dating and marriage in Shakespeare’s time and how they did and did not manifest themselves in Shakespeare’s plays. Others take a more theoretical approach in an attempt to gauge audience reception and understanding both then and now. It’s definitely heady stuff, but for Shakespeare buffs it would make a perfect beach read. After all, the book is celebrating (and dissecting) one of the things for which Shakespeare is most famous: his evocation of love.

One of the examples featured in the book is Measure for Measure, a play about women placed in impossible positions by their romantic entanglements with men. Juliet (not the one who goes all crazy over Romeo) gets pregnant by Claudio, resulting in his death sentence for fornication. Isabella is given the choice to surrender her virtue (and her plans to become a nun) in order to save Claudio’s life. Finally, Mariana, pretends to be Isabella so that her union with Angelo will force him to marry her. For each of these women, their relationships (whether desired or not) are defined along legal lines. Their need to negotiate their circumstances speaks volumes about the options available to women when Shakespeare was writing. Books like Love, Sex and Marriage… force us to look more closely at the serious roots of seemingly lightweight romantic entanglements.

Just when you think it has all been said about Shakespeare and his plays, another biography, adaptation or analysis appears. Shakespeare is arguably the most written-about writer in history. We still argue about what he wrote, what he thought, and even who he bedded. As an example, take the new tome Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way. The book offers straightforward analysis of some of The Bard’s best known plays. Criticism of Shakespeare and his works falls onto a large spectrum with two distinct poles at either end.

The first revels in Shakespeare’s complexities and contradictions. Not only does such criticism acknowledge Shakespeare’s challenges, it often compounds them with equally intricate theoretical language. For the most extreme of this type of scholar, Shakespeare is only for the really, really smart few who, you know, GET it.
On the opposing side are the bridge-builders. For the, Shakespeare is awash in idiomatic expressions and dense metaphors that can obfuscate the plays’ meanings. Their mission is to make Shakespeare clearer and more accessible. The intent is to be helpful and turn new readers onto The Bard. At their most extreme, both schools of thought are based on the same condescending principle that most people are not capable of understanding Shakespeare without academic intervention. Those in the middle take the more admirable path of meeting readers halfway to collectively wrestle with these heady, wonderful texts. Instead of defining and dictating, they ask questions and invite readers to come up with answers (and questions of their own), reflecting their own unique and valuable perspective.

Perhaps sometimes we ask the wrong questions. Scholars and amateurs alike (the distinction between which can vary) never seem to tire of question Shakespeare’s identity and the authorship of his plays. Did Marlowe fake his death, a la Elvis, and write for him? Did Will collaborate? Did he even exist at all? The root of these questions appears to be Shakespeare’s very genius itself. Many find it difficult to believe he came up with so many great and intricate works in a relatively short period of about two decades.

Like debating the nature of God and the universe, perhaps it is only human to interrogate history and try to shake the truth out of it. Still, the effect can often be something akin to a dog chasing its tail. The new production, The Haunting of Will Shakespeare, manages to sidestep these problems by creating a historical fiction that approaches them from a completely different direction. The play, which echoes A Christmas Carol, follows young Will on an eventful trip through a haunted forest. During the long night, the young playwright is visited by spirits who will ultimately manifest themselves in his famous plays. The cleverness in the conceit is that it tells rather than asks. By taking a fantastical route, it presents a fanciful imagining of the inspiration for these great works and explains how they all came from the same writer’s hand. While it is obviously not meant to be taken as history, the approach is refreshingly lighthearted in light of unanswerable questions that are often asked far too seriously.

Having recently blogged about scholars who think Shakespeare should be an exclusively literary experience, I have now come across a theory form the opposite end of the spectrum. For some, Shakespeare is all about action—so much so that he wrote it into the text. Millions of pages have been devoted to the brilliance of The Bard’s verse, with special attention going to the iambic pentameter that comprised much of his writing. This theory looks at his language from the opposite perspective. Focusing on moments when the meter is dropped, altered, or (especially) shortened, it asserts that these moments constitute calls to action. In other words, Shakespeare arrests the meter to allow the actor an opportunity to act.

The idea is certainly compelling as it seems logical that in addition to breaking up the momentum (or potential monotony) of the text, Shakespeare might want a physical choice to accompany it. The finale of Hamlet, whit its duels, poisonings, and double-crossings, has many metric aberrations. According to this theory, that would aid the complex staging of the sword fighting and slayings. Conversely, both Romeo and Juliet manage to end their lives without leaving meter behind. Since it is not consistently employed, what is important is that this theory not be used as a “rule.” Whenever we talk about something being “the way Shakespeare would have wanted it,” we are in dangerously presumptuous territory. Besides, even if hit was what Will wanted, who says he was right? Some of the best interpretations of his work have been those that have run against our expectations.

In a recent theatre review, the author noted a rather unusual branch of Shakespeare studies. Some scholars have argued that Shakespeare’s plays were never meant for the stage at all. One of the main justifications for this belief is that the language itself is so complex and rich that physicalization only serves to obfuscate the meaning of the text. For theses select few. Shakespeare should be heard (or read) and not seen.

Throughout the history of theatre, many plays were believed to be written as “closet drama,” or works written for literary enjoyment only. Part of the reason the ancient Roman tragedies are so explicitly violent is because they may never have been performed. Similarly, works penned in religious cloisters during the Middle Ages also may have been read without being staged. In many case, limitations both practical and cultural prevented the plays from being produced.

Lumping Shakespeare in with this tradition seems curious. We’ll set aside the obvious question of a lack of proof and instead look at it in artistic terms. Let’s say these assertions are true. What relevance do they have upon twenty first-century productions? There have been plenty of critically and commercial successful interpretations of The Bard that did not leave audiences scratching their heads. Even if Will himself only wanted to have people hole up in a library or tavern and read his plays, would that make him right? Shakespeare may be dead, but that is no reason his plays should be too.