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Dateline:
2nd October, 2005
Soapbox Shakespeare
Shakespeare is a Millstone Round the Neck of British Culture
A Soap Box Debate in association with Menier Chocolate Factory
The second Soap Box Debate at the Menier Chocolate Factory was always
likely to prove heated. A measure of the interest generated was a feature
on Radio Four's Today programme on the morning of the debate.
In fact, at times, despite the finest efforts of chair Rachel Halliburton,
it was in danger of becoming explosive. This is all quite remarkable
in view of the fact that its subject was a playwright who lived 400
years ago.
After a brief introduction from Daily Mail critic Patrick Marmion,
we were straight into a debate in which each speaker was supposed to
restrict their speeches to three minutes. Without exception, they failed
to do so, generally as a result of the passion of their feelings about
the subject.
First up was heavily pregnant Observer journalist Miranda Sawyer speaking
for the motion. She seemed a little surprised at being invited to speak
so soon after her arrival and did so unscripted and possibly less than
fully prepared.
Miss Sawyer describes herself as in normal punter who is not particularly
educated. She takes a very negative, almost philistine view of the works
of the playwright whom she definitively believes is a cultural millstone.
The problem that she identifies is the fact that you can't get away
from the Shakespeare industry and has similar feelings about the Brontes
and the Tudors. Miss Sawyer suggests that the obvious conclusion to
reach is that the British are ashamed of what has happened since.
She also emphasises her belief that some of what Shakespeare wrote
was not very good: for example. of Troilus and Cressida she said,
"it was just rubbish". She admits that there are "some
amazing scenes and characters" but does not believe that his plays
work for a modern audience.
Leading for the opposition was a man whose whole life is devoted to
Shakespeare and whose livelihood depends on him. Michael Boyd is the
director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and as might be expected,
put up a lively, educated and vehement defence of the Bard.
He started by pointing out that every year, almost 100,000 people see
Shakespeare for the first time and that is just in Stratford. He believes
that his hero is "an almost bottomless source of pleasure"
and compares him to Beethoven, Ted Hughes, Samuel Beckett, Picasso,
Philip Roth and even the Simpsons in this category.
Boyd is also still learning more about Shakespeare and in particular
as result of three recently published books, has begun to understand
how much courage and ability it took for Shakespeare to say what he
meant. This was certainly appreciated by one avid reader, Nelson Mandela
who, as a subversive protest, read and shared Shakespeare when he was
imprisoned on Robben Island.
Boyd is also something of a politician pointing out that Adriano Shaplin
is just like William Shakespeare. In particular, he pointed out that
Shaplin's latest work for The Riot Group, Switch
Triptych currently on show at Soho Theatre, includes Macbeth's
three witches and "has Shakespeare scrambling all over it".
Like a three-minute call in a theatre, Boyd's took closer to ten but,
judging by audience reaction, no one minded too much.
American playwright and lecturer Adriano Shaplin, currently hiding
behind a bushy black beard was the funniest of the speakers. He started
by describing himself as "a proud servant the theatre" who
is "passionately behind and predicated on a crazy faith" in
it.
However, he believes that the Shakespeare industry is guilty of necrophilia
(his word), showing a fawning reverence and giving off a funereal odour.
His provocative speech continued by suggesting that "they love
Shakespeare more than they love Theatre". He wanted to know where
new direction and formal innovation would come from if everybody was
obsessed with copying Shakespeare.
He did admit that Shakespeare was "a man who spoke beautifully
through the theatre and wrote great tragedies". He then controversially
suggested that since we don't live in tragic times we no longer have
a need for tragic plays.
The final speaker was young British playwright and actor, Kwame Kwei-Armah.
His approach was to consider the multicultural aspect of Shakespeare's
work.
He said that like Miranda Sawyer, he knew very little about Shakespeare
and grew up hating him. He qualified this last statement by suggesting
that at the same time, he had also hated another man whom he had later
grown to love, Bob Marley.
He contradicted Shaplin commenting "as a playwright, I feel the
vibrations of ages and do believe we live in tragic times".
He bemoaned the fact that there are very few plays that contain good
parts for black actors and immediately, this put Shakespeare above any
of his contemporaries and most subsequent writers thanks to Othello,
a play with a black man at its centre. For him therefore, the key to
Shakespeare's success in future was the multiculturalism that embodied
sympathetic portrayals not only of the black man but also Jews and others
from minorities.
At this point, questions were invited from the floor and the first
speaker was Tam Dean Burn, a Scotsman who has acted in Shakespeare and
is currently playing in Mary Stuart by Schiller. He believed
that the real millstone around the neck of that oxymoron, the Royal
Shakespeare Company was not the middle word but the first one. He would
have been far happier had it been called the Republican Shakespeare
Company and believes that Shakespeare, who was so caustic about royalty
would have agreed!
He also asked a question as to why Shakespeare was above Marlowe but
there was general agreement that "William Shakespeare as an awful
lot better than Jonson or Marlowe".
The second speaker, a young American on attachment at the Globe, may
well have wished that he had spent his evening elsewhere as Adriano
Shaplin launched a tirade against him and his view that Shakespeare
must be good because he attracted people to the Globe who otherwise
knew nothing about theatre.
There were many more questions and considerably more debate from which
the main themes were the need for contemporary playwrights to write
the big theme plays that we expect from Shakespeare but no longer see,
primarily due to financial constraints, and further that they should
all aspire to creating works as great as those of Shakespeare.
Eventually, two leading theatre critics could hold back no longer,
Patrick Marmion stating that "Shakespeare haunts the imagination
and constipates us" and Alistair Macaulay of the Financial Times
finally losing patience with Shaplin and, citing Iraq as an example,
attacking his claim that we do not live in tragic times.
In the summing up, Miranda Sawyer suggested that "I'd like to
get on without him." Michael Boyd claimed that Shakespeare was
blamed for other people's faults - for example bad directors and people
after cheap quotes. Adriano Shaplin, continuing his role as angry young
man suggested that he was the wrong person to diss Shakespeare and gave
the cogent speech against his own motion while Kwame Kwei-Armah, probably
summarised the feelings of the whole room when he said "let's get
William Shakespeare's vibes sent to new writing".
All that was left was for the brave but harried Rachel Halliburton
to ask for a vote which shot down the motion by a majority of something
like 10-1. This will be good news for Michael Boyd who has kept his
job but bad for Adriano who must have hoped that 400 years from now,
Shakespeare having been banned long before, Boyd's great-great-grandson
could have headed the Republican Shaplin Company.
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