Reminiscences of a Cool Shakespearean

2014 production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Royal Shakespeare Company

I was about 18 years old when I bought my first Complete Works. I remember it well, a hardback book with a plain cover; thick, poor quality paper which quickly became tacky; and tiny print with no footnotes. It was absolutely the worst

My original Othello
Cambridge Shakespeare

kind of books to begin an exploration of the works of the Bard. But I suppose that I must have persisted for at some point I graduated to individual editions of several of the plays. The Cambridge Shakespeare, with their red covers and a drawing of Shakespeare by Picasso, were my preferred editions, and I remember purchasing Hamlet, As You Like It, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Richard III, and perhaps several more that I no longer recall. I carried my copy of Hamlet around with me for so long and read it so much that it literally fell to pieces. I particularly liked the prose scenes with their lively, witty, esoteric dialogue, such as Hamlet’s assertion that he was ‘but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.’ 2.2.347

I now have a copy of Hamlet from The New Cambridge Shakespeare with a footnote explaining that ‘handsaw’ has been interpreted as ‘hershaw’, a kind of heron, and ‘hawk’ as a plasterer’s tool so named. 

I don’t know why I bought Troilus and Cressida, that strange ‘problem play’ set in the Trojan wars with its anti-war, anti-heroism sentiment, so different to Homer’s Iliad. It was only later that I read the other ‘problem plays’: Alls Well That Ends Well; and Measure for Measure, a play of sexual permissiveness in Vienna, in which a phoney monk (the Duke of Vienna in disguise) proposes marriage to a nun (Isabella, the play’s neurotic heroine), and a convicted murderer refuses to attend his own execution. A problem play indeed!

I also at this time saw my first theatrical production of Hamlet. It was presented by the Prospect Theatre Company with Ian McKellen as Hamlet, John Woodvine as Claudius, Faith Brook as Gertrude, James Cairncross as Polonius, and Susan Fleetwood as Ophelia. McKellen was the evident star with posters of him on sale in the foyer for 50 pence. But, alas, his Hamlet failed to impress at least one critic, who wrote of his: ‘sudden shuddering emphasis of lines which seem to bear little or no relationship to his or any other interpretation of the play.’ The same critic, however, praised Susan Fleetwood’s verse speaking as ‘graceful and true’, and thanked Faith Brook for her interpretation of Gertrude as a drunkard ‘ready to sign up with Alcoholics Anonymous’. 

Ian McKellen as Hamlet
Prospect Theatre

It was many years before I saw another production of Hamlet. It was in period costume, though in one scene Hamlet was strangely watching TV. I would need to refer anyone to the play’s director for an explanation of that one.

I bought many more individual editions of the plays, but I didn’t acquire another Complete Works until the Compact Edition of the Oxford Shakespeare of 1988. This controversial edition printed the plays not as they believed Shakespeare wrote them, but as they believed they were performed in the playhouses at the time, since Shakespeare (and others) made alternations during rehearsals or early performances. Some of the alterations were quite shocking to Shakespeare purists, of which I at the time was sadly one. I was particularly outraged by Gertrude’s line in Hamlet: ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’, being transformed in the Oxford edition to: ‘The lady protests too much. methinks.’ No doubt the editors had sound scholarship on their side. But take it from me, dear reader, it was definitely not cool. And neither did the tomfoolery end there. The Oxford editors also decided that the forest in As You Like It was not the forest of Arden in Shakespeare’s native county of Warwickshire, but the forest of Ardenne in France. A travesty! Revolutions have been fought over less!

A new edition of the Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works was published in 2016 and is proving to be equally as controversial as its 1988 predecessor. Its most publicised claim is that Shakespeare had a collaborator in the writing of the all three parts of Henry VI, namely his chief rival Christopher Marlowe.

My most memorable As You Like It
Kate Buffery as Rosalind

My interest in Shakespeare has now become a kind of ‘gentlemanly hobby’ (to borrow a quote from Anthony Burgess) and I am building up a collection of editions of The New Cambridge Shakespeare (whose covers now depict a portrait of Shakespeare by David Hockney). I very occasionally participate in the hashtag #ShakespeareSunday on Twitter, in which participants are asked to tweet their favourite Shakespeare quotes on a given theme. I usually avoid reading biographies and critical studies on the plays but can recommend the following:

James Shapiro - 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. An examination of Shakespeare's plays of 1599 against a background of contemporary events which Professor Shapiro believes influenced the dramatist's writing at the time.

Charles Nicholl - The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street. A fascinating study of Shakespeare at his only known address in London and the domestic drama that unfolded.

   

Get thee to a nunnery

'Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?'

In Hamlet, the eponymous hero tells his mistress Ophelia: 'Get thee to nunnery!' But Ophelia does not heed the command of her lover. Instead, she drowns herself in a lily pond.

Yet what if she had? What if Ophelia had hied herself to a distant convent and taken holy orders? What would have befallen her? 

What follows is an account of....
 OPHELIA IN A NUNNERY.

*********

Having quit the palace of Elsinore, the fair Ophelia arrives at the nunnery and is ushered into the hallowed chamber of the Mother Superior, who explains to Ophelia that if she wishes to enter the Sacred Order she must take a strict vow of silence. 
"Under the vow you will only be permitted to speak TWO WORDS once every ten years," the Mother Superior tells Ophelia. "Are you willing to be bound by this unbreakable rule?"
"I am, Holy Mother," replies Ophelia.
"Then welcome, my child," says the Mother Superior. "Off you go, about your work, and I'll see you again in ten years time."

Ophelia leaves the chamber and spends the next ten years scrubbing the floors of the convent, working in the kitchen, and labouring in the garden in the wind, the rain and the sun. Ten years later she returns to the Mother Superior's chamber.

"You have now been with us for ten years," says the Mother Superior. "Under the strict rule of our Sacred Order you are now permitted to say two words. What would you like to say?"
"BED - HARD," said Ophelia.
"That's fine," says the Mother Superior. "Now off you go back to your work and I'll see you in another ten years time."

Ophelia returns to her work in the convent, scrubbing the floors, working in the kitchen, and labouring in the garden in the wind, the rain and the sun. Ten years later she returns to the Mother Superior's chamber.

"You have now been with us for another ten years," says the Mother Superior. "Under the strict rule of our Sacred Order you are now permitted to say two words. What would you like to say?"
"FOOD - ROTTEN," said Ophelia.
"That's good," said the Mother Superior. "Now off you go back to your work and I'll see you in another ten years time."

Ophelia returns to her work in the convent, scrubbing the floors, working in the kitchen, and labouring in the garden in the wind, the rain and the sun. Ten years later she returns once more to the Mother Superior's chamber.

"You have now been with us for another ten years," says the Mother Superior. "Under the strict rule of our Sacred Order you are now permitted to say two words. What would you like to say?"
And then Ophelia broke down and began to scream aloud: "I've had enough! I can't take any more! I want to go home! I want to go home!"
The Mother Superior looked at Ophelia.
"And about time too!" she told her. "You've done nothing but bitch ever since you've fucking been here!"