377 days, Blog #128 a rant about Shakespeare that is really only partially about Shakespeare

This whole thing may or may not be some sort of deflection or a way to grapple with something I think is more conquerable than other thoughts taxing my brain.  I don’t know.

Last night I had a delightful conversation and dinner with a theater friend.  I like conversations that share ideas and possibilities… and creativity.  It was an evening where the minutes crept unnoticeably beyond the time I mandated for departure.  I got home and my mind was spinning from so many different details… and one tiny little bur that did not relent.  Indeed, it only increased as I tried to wind down my thinking and fall asleep.  I did fall asleep, only to wake up 90 minutes later from a nightmare and stay awake thinking about it again.

What is it?  I was and am flummoxed about why are people so prejudiced about Shakespeare.

Ugh.

Credit Caro Wallis via Flickr Creative Commons

I guess I’m lucky.  I was 18 when I was in my first stage production.  It was so much fun.  I know I’ve talked about it in this blog on several occasions.  The joy of our laughter and friendships will always resonate every time I hear or speak Elizabethan verse.  I try to recreate it in every subsequent production or visit to the movies with friends or a series of dinner party themes.  I love it when I am surrounded by like minded enthusiasts and we have another one of those conversations that don’t stop at the appointed hour and just keep going until, whoops, it’s way passed our bedtime.

Now, I have also had my bad experiences.  Some really awful ones, in fact.  Some interpretations and executions of the script that make my spine hurt from tedium or during which my mind wanders to washing dishes or other housekeeping tasks I need to accomplish.  Dinner parties that fizzle out.  Cast members and critics who are more dogmatic about iambic pentameter or setting than any truth declaring Evangelist zealot.  And… the thing that always frustrates me and breaks my heart… when people close their mind about Shakespeare before even allowing you to speak.

I get it.  And frankly, I don’t want everyone to like it.  As an intrinsic rule about myself, I tend not to like things that everyone likes.  I don’t like sports.  I have a hot and cold to lukewarm appreciation for musicals.  I really dislike most things Disney or Disney-fied.  And that’s okay.  It’s okay for me to not like it, just like it’s okay for people to not like Shakespeare.

But… when people turn that dislike into some elevated high art codswallop, it really gets under my skin.  Shakespeare is NOT (in my mind) an exclusive club of appreciation.  It does not require a certain element of intelligence to comprehend.  It does not require sticking to some imaginary set of rules for what is right and wrong.  It is a niche, but not one that is as impossible to cultivate as finding the holy grail.  It is not holy.  It should not be revered as if it were god-like.  It is not precious, sacred text. It is a series of plays written by a man.  A theater man, who like any actor today has a dirty sense of humor and is keyed in to the highs and lows of the human condition.

 I do realize that not everyone sees it that way.  I do realize the dread embedded by English papers and exams trying to boil a play down to a piece of literary conversation.  I get that some people prefer musicals or Neil Simon.  I get that if you don’t listen to Shakespeare downloads and audiobooks as often as some listen to One Direction or whatever, it could sound like a lot of gobbledygook.  

I just wish the wall against the possibility for it to be something else, even if it is the idea that it is something else to a bunch of other someones, wasn’t so impenetrable.  That minds weren’t so closed to different ideas.  That the status quo of thinking had a good run, but maybe it is time to turn things inside out and look at it from a different view.

Maybe it isn’t possible to change minds, though.  Maybe this is the chance to see I am investing a lot of effort and time into a place where I don’t really belong or fit in.  And so… it isn’t that my idea is bad.  It’s that my idea is a bad fit.

And there is where the restlessness and hamster wheel in my mind starts whirring out of control.

Is it really possible to go back and live in a small town with ideas that press against the comfort zone of people who never left?  Or people who have been doing things the same way for years?  (And no, I’m not just talking about Shakespeare anymore.  But it is half of it.)  Does it simply require time and patience for them to change perspective by providing a non-confrontational, unintimidating example of a different point of view?  Maybe, yes.  Do I want to take that time?  Or am I wasting it and my own creative potential by operating at their speed? Am I not undermining my own confidence and skills by letting this sort of thing get under my skin and fluster me so?  Would I not serve everything I learned… and a much broader, more appreciative – and thus more impactful – audience by going somewhere else?

But if I go back to my fifth paragraph and contemplate how I learned to think what I think, I consider how to change someone’s mind and unlock the wall of prejudice. It is about creating a connection.  An emotional connection.  A human connection.  That is possible any place at any time.  It does require some patience, but more a lack of haste’s brutality.  I’m still not sure if I want to do that though.  Does that make me a bad person?

I miss being amongst my more sympathetic peers.  I yearn for more conversations that really push the boundaries of convention and comfort.  But is it not creating a comfortable bubble by nestling in a world of like-minded friends?  Well… in the context of Shakespeare that bubble isn’t problematic.  In the context of the thing I’m not naming, it is.

I’m not in my comfort zone right now.  It’s actually a good place to be because to find my peace, I have to figure out a solution.  I know my options at least.  And, really, neither of them is easy.