The Taming of the Shrew

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Oh, I have such a love/hate relationship with this work (as do many others long before me).  It was the first ever Shakespearean play in which I performed, back in my senior year of high school.  It inspired a classic, hilarious teen movie (to which I heavily related because I was 17 when it came out).  I’ve seen some great performances of this play.  Part of my love centers on the heightened theatricality of this play – more so than most, the text is determined by how it’s interpreted by a director and actors.

But the straight text, taken without the nuance and emotive direction of seeing it performed, is so troubling.  Modern audiences grapple with Petruchio's treatment of his new wife and of Kate's reasons for transformation.  Many attempt to explain why Kate is a shrew at the beginning.  I think this is a thoroughly modern issue -- since the 20th century, people have been preoccupied with examining past events to explain current behavior.  But where do we draw the line between learning from our pasts and being mired down in them? 

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As You Like It

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I love a good romp in the woods.  It’s still, in today’s world, an ideal we hold: escape to the wilderness to get away from it all.  Shakespeare already explored this idea in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where the lovers of Athens escape from the oppressive court to wild fairyland to find their romantic happiness.  While reading AYLI, I was on vacation far away from my busy California home, visiting my parents in the mountains of North Carolina (hiking Pisgah National Forest, visiting Sierra Nevada’s Brewery,  and taking in all the fresh, green quiet of early spring).  We slowed down and got away from work and schedules.  Focused less on rules and more on fun.  We all need rejuvenating periods like this to reflect, assess, and just blow of steam.  But everyone gets back to reality at some point – even Rosalind will leave the forest and return to court.  So, spiritually speaking, how does one balance a courtly life of duty with a frivolous forest life?

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A Midsummer Night's Dream

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Why This Play?: 

Half my life ago, I was a teenager on her first trip to Europe.  My English teachers took a group of students on a two-week literary tour of Ireland and the UK.  In many ways (e.g. my pop culture preferences), I’ve been trying for 17 years to chase the magic of that trip.  On the southern border of Scotland, I purchased a huge, pale pink, perfect cashmere sweater.  Ever since, it’s served as my personal security blanket, and is one of my prized (if battered) possessions.  It’s warm, filled with great memories, and always there when I need it.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is my literary equivalent of that sweater.  It’s the first Shakespeare I ever read, back in my dreamy, very bookish twelve-year-old days (eh, what's changed?).  The play that always makes me still kinda-sorta believe in fairies.  It’s the last play in which I performed…although hopefully that is not forever the case.  This is the play I read in the winter when I’m dreaming of warm days and long hikes in the woods.  It’s not necessarily my favorite in all of Shakespeare, but reading or seeing it is always like greeting an old friend.

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The Merry Wives of Windsor

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Why This Play?:

Two reasons.  1) After both the Henry IV plays, it was nice to round out the Falstaff saga.  Now I can dust my hands of the man!  2) My MOOC on Shakespeare was diving into this play last week, so it all aligned nicely. 

Merry Wives is a wholly underestimated work.  It doesn’t receive enough credit for the trope of “strong females” when Shakespeare’s heroines are discussed and analyzed in literary criticism and lectures.  This is also the play that is the most…well, normal, in its premise.  The one that’s most similar to the lives of Shakespeare’s actual audience in the London theatres (as opposed to royal viewers at court).  No royalty, no wars, no Italy, no murder, no magic.  Just married folks in a quiet English town, ready to throw down the nasty varlet who arrives to upheave their steady lives for his own gain.

Plenty of critics call it boring, but The Merry Wives of Windsor may just give the stamp of approval on being content with a simple life.  Does that really have to be so boring?

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Much Ado About Nothing

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Why This Play?:

Time and again, this play makes an appearance when I need to shake up my life.  Seriously, it magically worms its way onto my path, gives me a kick in the ass, and points me onto the proper bend in the road I didn’t previously notice.  Much Ado’s characters, its humor and love, its theme of redemption/forgiveness in the face of darkness always manages to pull me out of a funk; to kick my ass into gear again. 

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