This morning, on the way to Starbucks (or as we call it… Starcrack), a coworker of mine asked me an excellent question.  He asked me why he should bother coming to see another Shakespeare play.  He said the language is hard to understand, and he just doesn’t really care to spend another two hours of his life confused.

A fair concern.  Shakespeare’s language doesn’t roll off the tongue for all actors or roll into the brain of all audience members with ease.  And, in general, people have a lifetime of bad Shakespeare experiences to solidify that.  Starting in school where it’s read and dissected rather than acted and brought to life.  Of course it’s boring!  People in Shakespeare’s time wouldn’t have read it in school either!  I’m an English major, and I’ll tell you right now that it’s doing Shakespeare a disservice to put it in a lovely glass box on a pedastal.  Maybe you’ve seen a production or two, starring Mr. "listen to how important my voice is while I speak this text, you ruffians!" or Ms. "I’m not sure what I’m saying, but I sure am saying it loudly!"  With costumes by Mr. "Tights and cone hats are SOOO in!"  Heck… you probably even saw those guys IN the movie your high school English teacher showed you.  Those are the people who do the best they can to separate themselves from the audience.  "We’re better than you because we’re doing Shakespeare."

So why should you bother to go see a Shakespeare play? 

Shakespeare’s characters are emotional and raunchy and weird and smart and, frankly, they’re just like you or me.  They just happen to have the advantage of a really good writer.

Our mission - and the mission of a lot of companies - is to look beyond the time period to the essence of the story and what the people are going through.  Your first boyfriend.  That will they/won’t they relationship.  Friends who think they know what’s best for you.  Getting in that last zinger in the argument.  Love.  Jealousy.  Friendship.  Family ties.  These are familiar situations, right?  So we try to find a setting that is already familiar to us, and has the same themes.  Then we use pieces of that familiar situation throughout the play to aid the language in telling the story.  And the language… well… we spend a lot of time making sure that WE and THE ACTORS know what the heck it all means.  If we don’t know… how can you?

Right?

Come see Much Ado.  You’ll see what I mean.  In a play all about family, love, deception… and probably a couple of dumb flunkies who do what they’re told… a lot of the same ingredients for a neighborhood mafia, eh?  You’ve seen those mob movies… you already know these characters.  They’re just telling their story a little differently. 

Shakespeare is for audiences.  And I hope you (and my coworker) will agree!