>Which is precisely why the earlier comment by LS209[?] about Shakespeare not
>'speaking' etc was so bizzarre. I'd be interested to hear clarification of
>how Shakespeare doesn't speak.
Shakespeare speaks, for sure, but sometimes he gets throttled: by bad
productions, by bad teaching, by anything which simply places him as the
lofty genius of English and squeezes the life out of him. I was taught
The Merchant of Venice at school very badly, and it nearly put me off
him: but then at the tender age of 14 we were taken to see Polanski's
film of Macbeth, in which Francesca Annis wandering around only clothed
by her red hair. I remember it was a shock, because the language which
looked so forbidding written down was so clear when it was _said_. And
then I read Lear, and I was hooked.
There was a radio broadcast of Kenneth Branagh's version of Hamlet some
years ago, of which I recorded the first episode. It wasn't that good,
but it had John Geilgud as Hamlet's father shuddering "the horror, the
horror", as only he could... and my kids, then about 4 and 6, crept out
of bed to listen. After that I had to put the tape on every night at
bedtime in lieu of a story. They loved it. I've no idea what they loved
about it, they certainly didn't understand much of the play, unless it
was simply the sheer pleasure of the language - all those wonderful
words, and the wind whistling around the ramparts - they called it the
Ghost Play. But it says something for Shakespeare's visceral attraction.
Best
Alison
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