Shakespearean Snobbery
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
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I've never really understood why people think that Shakespeare is for 'posh people', but then I've never really understood why everybody doesn't love Shakespeare. Two years before making his serious stage debut as Othello at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Lenny Henry summed up his attitude to Shakespeare. “It seemed to me that Shakespeare was very much in the province of posh people,” he said on a Radio 4 series about the Bard. “I’m black, I’m from Dudley, I’m working class. Shakespeare’s not for people like us.”
I don't get it. Shakespeare is for everyone. I saw my first Shakespeare play (Romeo and Juliet at the Birmingham Rep) when I was about 9 or 10 and fell in love. Amongst my favourite productions are a modern take on Macbeth at the Birmingham Rep in the mid '90s, Much Ado About Nothing at Dudley Castle, a Tarantino take on Shakespeare at the MAC a few years back, an outdoor, evening performance of Romeo and Juliet at Ludlow Castle and A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Swan Theatre two years ago which was my son's first Shakespeare at the age of 8, which he loved.
Certainly in my lifetime there has been a move away from the 'traditional Shakespeare style', even by the RSC and many productions now use modern costume/sets etc whilst sticking to the original text, but this isn't a new phenomenon. The production of Macbeth I saw in the mid '90s saw the witches as hookers and Macduff's family were machine gunned down by hitmen in bomber jackets. So while theatre companies are doing what they can to make Shakespeare more accessible there still seems to be this idea that it's just for 'posh people'.
I admit to having an element of snobbery when it comes to the theatre which stems from pantomime-induced trauma as a child at the hands of my aunt (I have major issues, to the point of physical panic, with audience participation, things being thrown, flashy light things.....), so I expect people to sit quietly in the theatre, applaud at the appropriate intervals, not shout out or eat except at the interval (rustling sweet wrappers while Lady Macbeth is attempting to clean the "damned spot" out is not appropriate), but I am not 'posh'.
Shakespeare was never for the 'posh people' during his lifetime, it was for everybody, so where has this perception come from? I was taken to the theatre and to Shakespeare from a young age and I've taken my son; not understanding all the words or not understanding the difference between a simile and a metaphor as young children did not detract from mine or his enjoyment of the play as a whole.
Many people will say they hate Shakespeare without ever having seen one of his plays, which is such a shame because they don't know what they might be missing out on. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that Shakespeare really isn't for everyone but I would urge everyone to at least give it a chance and lose all the misguided preconceptions. The RSC are doing Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice as well as a YPS version of The Taming of the Shrew this season, and Stratford is a beautiful place to spend the day and give the Bard a chance.
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