On Shakespeare Today, Dr. Allardyce Nichol; #230-1

president taylor is the head of the shakespeare quarters and dina now that we're a quarter sitting there is a heart of warm up for and i'm quite sure that you heat it just as much as i do and for this reason the rage is all the good that we don't have to use that word but he frequently that are fueling his start levin says the celebrated in this way every country has a june at his stock of episodes which are provide holidays each year but there were a few events the celebrated up to the end of a hundred years two hundred years and so on and there are hardly any office close quarters and dinner is odd celebrated quite in the same way in which we i now in england in a medicare throughout the whole world celebrating the anniversary of the birth of shakespeare four hundred years ago festivals

celebrations performance is perhaps the great symbol comes from the most constant organized asian that i can think of the british post office now the british post office since eighty four day has declared sunday but no buses six hundred pm and a british fan except the face of the meanings this year after i may say oh great deal of argument and attempted invasion britain has it showed a shakespeare celebration stat that stands for me as the height of shakespeare's popularity in a sense shakespeare is position after these four hundred years since abandoned which is entirely the

opposite of this object which is exhibited by other great writers set his position really is unique because where other great writers have painted when they are remembered the tall to have their things decline shakespeare's famous been rising during the center's he is in the stands absolutely unique just how unique i think and the red eyes to if we go back to the atf fifteen sixty fall when shakespeare was born and imagine ourselves in a time machine leaping over the centuries supposing we jump a hundred years to sixty and sixty four hundred years after shakespeare's birth and ask ourselves what to shakespeare's position then i think that we should have found that a great many people in england did know his name the toll that only perhaps

someone knocked two persons on the continent of europe had ever heard of him the only people who would've seen his place will recognize that he was a great romantic writer well within the little circle they apply to all cultures who attended the two small theaters the london and then supposing we had tend to or representative members of the organs and said what about that shakespeare what he had to say about i think the brown hair state average member of this more organs would've said oh yes he's quite interesting though rather old fashioned and juno banged but they would probably have added two other things that most of them would've said after saying that shakespeare was quite interesting would've said

but of course only four of eddie few days four or five or six we can read ideas they say today we tend to be says they missed that poppy preserve it as seed you expect to go and on the whole really was fair lady intelligent but when he went to the midsummer night's dream he described this as a day i had never seen the fall nor shall ever again part is the most in sydney drink diggin display that mri sort my life only thing the peas and the other words some good dancing and some handsome wooden of beeps was always beats that this was in sixty sixty three and sixty six before he saw the bible of henry the eighth and he described it as so simpler thing made up of a

great many pictures that besides the shows and positions in it there is nothing in the world gold orwell got all this would have been the first qualification that would've been made that the only appeal of his plays a worthy second qualification would have been and of course rarely we must admit the ben johnson i was a great playwright and shakespeare so far been for sixteen sixty four we get into our time machine and we laid forward to seventeen sixty four nothing is done that time to celebrate two hundredth anniversary of shakespeare but five years later david get taken his friends spent a week in stratford upon leaving out a so called shakespeare jubilee suffering the incessant english writing which bore down on them from the monday on tour of a troubling sunday squelching through the

mine citing olds watching pensions of shakespeare skeptic doesn't that not all this indicates that there was a den written a certain circle by widening of shakespeare's plays that people in england would have known about it well people in england would have an option to sing some displays a few of his pieces were being translated into continental european languages and played a brought ben johnson's dog was still shining shining just a little bit delayed by this time and we begin to hear the use of the word genius for shakespeare this word genius out there in the eighteenth century is hardly ever knew was unqualified generally there was an advocate pitch didn't need to shakespeare was a native genius he was nature's chopped and just his nature

air and presented itself to the eighteenth century is joining into needed a good deal of pruning so it was assumed that shakespeare's plays needed to be really a vote to be presented to this got judd polite society obvious sixties or seventies eighteenth century did the goal of this song verses which appeared in the magazine just to yell out to befall the jubilee medic had altered shakespeare's hamlet and in these birds is the emissions shakespeare's ghost beginning to the men who headed up to display jason is goes is very apologetic very very humble he says to get ink from relay correct my parade my page i wrote the piece of ruled on college age and it is a blessing getting directly

involved a happy man art fated to display guy a dazzling dance number right ok and then almost pathetic and kept day ago says caddick let me put take the night's applause with the am dial shout shared immortal prays with me well this then my bit about it is the attitude of a period two hundred years after shakespeare's birth enjoy a time machine we'd go and we'd leap forward to eating sixty four and we find that there is a little seasons two weeks or three weeks at stratford upon avon there is recognition of the pic of business three hundred years after shakespeare's birth and his plays are becoming known abroad translations snark common in france in germany in italy and elsewhere

the word genius is you just and its use now without qualification we writing is classified as something to be frowned on johnson's staub has become verdi that i think in the sky is at shakespeare's name is now a household word of that is one thing in the atmosphere of eighteen sixty porters work and that is the cry shakespeare's regarded as a genius he is a godly this is from boston monument of a demand distant and wonderful past it as though he were a great gothic cathedral with a soaring new england gargoyles dreaming gotten from the walls you something from an age that doesn't belong to the victorian get his mind but the model as a writer

all the time pour it into our time machine and we jump forward to the present we ask ourselves how does the popular that's what i'm interested in the popular appeal of shakespeare differ from the popular appeal to the audience is the ordinary public aisle at sixty four cities it's important so here i think we notice two things first of all the last extension of shakespeare's popularity and secondly a difference in approach state the great news for this includes a popular ad that when we look around now we see that not only a limited number of european countries have consolations of shakespeare that shakespeare is being insulated and do

almost every new language and consolation problems from sedation in a constant endeavor to reach more deeply into a true rendering of shakespeare's text we'll own particularly a surprise perhaps and yet there are elements which makes us make us one reason is we need and the surprise perhaps that shakespeare should be much written about critically but for another writer has three year or fall periodicals devoted entirely to writing about his work we have they take german shakespeare jaco we've made mistakes but a quarter day of the united states' shakespeare survey that i haven't met a few days a few weeks ago about a new japanese the periodical which is being started quote shakespeare studies in russia

others the shakes that august is boarding which although doesn't appear to me yet is in effect a kind of idiotic and the speed of books and articles this is truly amazing we perhaps are not surprised that in this four hundred year from shakespeare's both shakespeare's plays should be presented in the english speaking countries but it is extraordinary that this plane right trigger this week that was devoted specifically to him there are shakespeare theatre in stratford upon avon shakespeare's stratford connecticut and the shakespeare theatre in on dale it is perhaps not surprising that shakespeare's plays had been presented in his four hundred pm abroad in other languages after

all she knows cynthia gray i was celebrated a yellow two ago and the old vic in london presented issue that day and simmer and they should appear to were presented in the united states but you know we have a number of all national theaters in various countries each of which has and is now an established tradition by which they stopped with a shakespeare production or have a shakespeare production as the court of their repertory season and something much more wonderful than that we find that in various countries shakespeare is the most popular dramatized of all projects in russia there are more shakespeare performances the performances of plays by any other also whatsoever i saw recently

a bot on germany and italy's that's this as flawed issue that yet of nineteen fifty eight we've ought to get out two thousand six hundred and seventy four performances of shakespeare's plays during the yacht nineteen fifty eight sixth there is still by far the most popular of all time of this on the germans think not even the two hundredth anniversary of china's birth in nineteen fifty eight could reverse the order of sixty four in spite of many sheila festivals sheila reached only a total of two thousand and seven six points and these families of the year after you know three years later it is again leading to compare the total number of shakespeare performance is in nineteen sixty one with those of other popular characters find the world together two thousand five hundred are performances of twenty six

please by shakespeare there were only fourteen hundred are by lacing thirteen hundred ob i get ten eleven hundred odd by sheer luck twelve thousand awed by the great and twelve thousand awed by to be gentle get out how so that cannot things that once a trade delegation make a set out and i'd mock barnett word in the elizabethan sense of one that is something very much more interesting when we turn from the extinction of shakespeare's popularity to the question of the difference between spa popularity now and in the past as a symbol of is it too walks which were published last year won by a russian theatre director and critic we've got a disease that and the other

a bit of dieudonne best known polish critic young caught it involves at the same time william shakespeare are going to you know i regret to say that i can't think but any also thirty years ago twenty years ago even two years ago would've dreamed of calling a book on shakespeare by in this way using the word words are content and it's not only these two main the volumes whole lot like these interest we find last year and beginning of this year a russian army and somebody in writing on our closeness to shakespeare visit axelrod of crimes says england shake spare is now also prompts a shakespeare often blamed on german rights on shakespeare and

the modern world we share only blame on bronson also combat experience devices with those eighteen days of vacant and in this school and can we recognize but shakespeare is being to go by and many as though he were a living playwright the words shakespearean is being applied to get a lot aoun beckett and for different reasons to get a lot to show appreciation of denmark's mixing of jamaica jones and his scenes of violence break of course obviously for his epic style make it because this region waiting for god though he is looking for before the public a sort of modern libya and it goes beyond these critics are now beginning

to turn and say we can understand shakespeare better buy taking the devices i'll brake and get on matt and so on and finding panels in shakespeare's work this is reversing the process it's not the influence of shakespeare on big it is is it worth it the influence or bake it upon our appreciation of shakespeare brian vargo last year the end of last year right in this city which aims to investigate whether the clear statements of intention by brecht when he uses certain devices may not through light on shakespeare's use of similar devices and this year dr brian as to essays called mr pinto as shakespeare and mr beck it's shakespeare there's nothing like these to be found anywhere else

other authors of course in your homeowner accounted torso do it but the deceased somehow in a different way not in these poppy and that the realm but shakespeare didn't have as we've done for example two pizzas famous object on first reading jet comes home and we listen to his word as he tells how he had heard of homer's works and first realized that greatness when he read the translation of george the chant and then and only then did he appreciate what homo was trying to do it speaks of homeless world yet did i never grieve it's pure serene til i heard zippo and speak out loud and brought in like some water of a surprise when a new plane that

swims into his skin or likes the court is when we eat though it is he's gathered the pacific and all his main pieces to chat with a wild so mine's silent about the pin day not quite obviously these lines on intense patient but there are two things that we have to observe most of all the impact of whom up on pete's is it to date are a great point about another point there is no sense of popularity in these lines it's an individual experience and saving today there is no sense in gates's words bobby's thinking of whom are speaking in a modern box it is that all of us from the past that has a quaint includes his years whit ayres with

shakespeare that is this stepping of shakespeare although the four hundred years and knowing as it were like a modern in on the state's almost unbelievable and i'm tempted to say that i feel that in the world of this project this is almost as wonderful as the one knows a present day physics now that means that we have to consider that a thirty or forty years ago we at wedding trying to stress shakespeare the elizabeth i would imagine in the comments that we were being told that shakespeare was a dentist in the latter years of the sixteenth century and the early years of the seventeenth century we must never forget that our we were

told that we must read his work's always in terms of the sunni shia and not in terms of the late nineteenth early twentieth century the question the day they didn't say might have spared inclined shakespeare to move into this commonly them and it's head like to let dollars that taking away from his popularity in the larger sense that don't act ended it is ready exhilarating stimulating to find this change in the our contemporary turns and undoubtedly that our contemporary terms seem to be more worthy and yet i think if we stopped to think about things that are certain dangers of which we ought to be aware of all that is the danger all associate

doing shakespeare with some modern romantic movement and with the modern dramatic movements which we are inclined to regard as the day peak of playwright thus for instance here again i may take a specific example to indicate what i mean get out of the convention was ended last year hamlet adapted not totally adapted by two authors and this was the preface to the printed text of the pressures in the program it is impossible to translate shakespeare's it one is a tort law of one mass re inventing shakespeare is the existing conditions adam rates the philosophy of the absurd and a world of noise you get to god i guess often commies ah president in

his death shakespeare how but speaks better than they do is mark pettit says he is more residue and that's what i mean by a sushi eating shakespeare with a mop and we find many critics speaking of shakespeare as innovate the inventor of the theater of the absurd that i personally i'm inclined to believe i may be wrong but so dramatic a story and i'm inclined to believe that you said is rapidly reaching its head many many of you and that is the danger you see that in your sushi cheeks but too much with the theater of the absurd and then the theater of the absurd declines in popularity shakespeare as popularity maybe break down with the decline of the other that's the day that i see

the second danger is are the actions on the part of certain depth of directors and there are many there are many of them of this kind who are eager to make the stress shakespeare's modernity by making the productions markman and i go in i'm thinking of this in quotation marks that in the third is orson welles who john julius caesar in new york where by cutting that takes coins very considerably by dressing the characters in an italian shoes uniforms that he gave something topical to the beats and margaret what in a book or on fixed that day margaret webster was one of the most acute and skillful of shakespeare's shakespearean

directors as this to say about orson welles as production at the end of the nineteen thirties orson welles took the text of julius caesar by the scruff of its neck and beat it into submission to his bones which was to contrive a melodrama about the murder of a dictator mussolini mark the result was a brilliant untimely piece of theater but it was oregon shakespeare and the last phrase of course is the one on which must constantly detention during the last few years in england in the united states we've had many productions in which they can act as our greatest i in dominance of the sixties or in garments of historical periods not far removed from ups have recently there is being the hamlet in minneapolis directed by guthrie and at the time in athens i directed by michael lang i'm

ian has stratford ontario and again let me quote mark webster this time not from her book but from an article she says i knew day of missing about that that takes as it but shakes there was about and then she imagines the director thinking of what he's going to do it little boy trained much more natural trench coats and volvos officer is that an old boys and govern the martini shaker days a better way to do macbeth in the great smoky haze she prayed while on the beach at waikiki that ends in a in the booms and mike clay of the blue leisure i mean the apartment the day like the un and your shop battle between a previous season queen victoria these may well be the traditions which the coming generation women have it and you don't destroy

shakespeare warned life she expected him to solve them all in destructive military is the word now i agree with mark webster and her comments on the productions but i'm not so sure whether i agree with just a month shakespeare warned by and shakespeare can absorb them all indestructible it is the word i am a broadening role myself to agree with the problem by our problem which i saw and which problem many of you saw in the new york times sunday times of august last year he spoke of two productions air one drug isn't president's record in connecticut in nineteen sixty one and the time which i referred about diversity said the production became a character after time all once image is

putting it into an unfolding of civil war equivalents of warning greeks intrusions one we did whatever gets and rejoiced when they came and one sided record label and promising new versions done that and then about time in there he as it were calls somebody i'm always in favor of such a production on these statues use for modern versions of the corrupt materialistic athens the plea of applause and then dugan goes on in arms the time believes that they have you think of turning into a game for the audience you go out for what they will think of nick's at the opening of a diamond of a burst of applause for each bite mark and touch these responses came occasionally in the midst of speeches often fragmenting lines and raises this kind of

thing is all for the organs just as working out on martin grace production of shakespeare must be fun for the director resigned and actors although it's a guthrie and mr lang and didn't sit out to produce grapes some americans eat even when most fed and bathed in this capability is one going to make a shakespeare production lively and without much shakespeare must not be lost in the post its and to me it seems that the government has a certain amount of justification for that in haiti last spring's there's a danger of shakespeare's been lost in the post it's not a hat so much simply from productions where the characters of rest in modern questions but drama from productions where as it were a modern concept it has been imposed on the text that we give you an example at stratford upon avon so ago there

was a handpicked and to me and to most of the organs and the liberty bell leon director i clearly of rape some shakespearean critique would endeavor to treat him that as a psychological study the nerd strange psychology back a puzzle for a little tricks of business each of which was presumably some bach one seems to adopt at least in the first tour before symptoms changed me joe because of the outcry on the pop critics it was a name that comes on stage with is or to grow this and sleeve of my speech was a large truck at the side of the stage and the zydeco all started this speech by sitting on the they'd of the truck then he got up and he moved around the stage and then he came back to the

trunk again in the middle of the speech he tried to time conducted the late i have been in he came to the name james bopp of the speech letters writers berlin air man so excited was he that he toppled bodily into the trunk and the leaking down of course presumably this was mean to show a bizarre on shakespeare's part of manhattan has brought to return to do well i won't perhaps there was another director that's sort of the actor playing him that wasn't particularly good in the community suddenly you saw the lead coming up with my hand and then you saw him that he's getting over the age of the child why was that nasa my house

when i let that that i started to wonder now supposing there was somebody who i had not seen him get on the stage and this was exposed him what would have been the impression that made on his mom i'm robin inclined to think that he would've said well they talk a lot about shakespeare deductible bowl and in so far there are many people that kind of it would have had a depressive effect upon shakespeare's popularity but there's something even more significant and dangers when there's nothing bad just time in five or six minutes at the blind to what i have in my mind at this and it was a cycle and i'm sick and now that it's done two statements regarding

shakespeare which are being made by critics of in your school and remember that many of these critics of the us who are being arraigned at it today by young directors wouldn't get going to translate into practical terms what the critics have had his own label forward we perhaps all remember and a number of years ago the great weight and predict two years and it declared that the book in hand it was an artistic think the plane it is still doubtful the same jurors with audiences as shakespeare's mosque is the blame for that feel about all other shakespeare works to the author about this is an artistic need i leant of these words back afterwards explained that when he made that statement he thought that hamlet was

at cycle and the dicks that play by shakespeare of what we now call the deepest conflicts he and red eyes and they after the passage of some eight or ten years that he had been misleading the plane simply taken one beat of the day or rather he'd impose his own ideas on the play and found justification for that in certain scenes and that it pours into the blind to the other qualities quite clearly this statement violates is the basis for the production and i just referred to apart from or alongside of the denigration which some critics attention to the greater works of shakespeare we find another thing that many of these young pretty it's saying innovate hamlet as in shakespeare's greatest

masterpiece are choosing out today you switch in the state's history of jake's back coming way down at the bottom of the list for example because us but can remain as is with antonin pierpont shakespeare's most assured artistic success so that is his guardian angels and stand at the dock but if we compare the record it's getting performances in this country in england in europe and elsewhere it would compare this with a performance of hamlet with the performances probably lean a cement a new departure we shall find that and that still remains the popular beats and of course very easily we go to explain its icy that wilson knight one of these new projects the glares the time on our anthems includes entrance soon as

hamlet of their low and king lear frankly i think it is absurd at a time when a vet loses in nevada by everybody as an unfinished they buy shakespeare to some attic ceiling they effective scenes but that and da played lex dramatic architecture at it something that shakespeare has been moved right but which he hasn't taken the trouble to mow into effect due to write for and this goes with the last thing that i want to stress and again i shall quote wilson that was the night he said while we when we view of the day's primaries day as studies in africa extracting the literary person from the coast nation of that poetic epic into which he he's woven we saw and by creating the camps if

however we give attention always to politico suggestion first thinking primarily in terms of symbolism not characters we shall find each play in turn appeared more and more amazing and delicacy its texture and then and not only will the horrific spears work begin to review its witches significance its harmony instrument to a certain extent i am prepared to agree with what was not saying that i'm not in his age or terms but i should agree that at least part of the critics attention should be devoted to the entire political structure of a play and that the director should apart from trying to instruct individual actors how to interpret the character's endeavored to get the mood the atmosphere to spend it which binds all these characters together but it's all pretty easy to move from

base to the words of another critic writing only last year kodiak candidate jobs by any standard of psychological that it's a minute she's not it reopens she says like elliot desdemona as a symbol of love and self second prize and reflection of the love of god a gun in here a girl comes a symbol of divine justice triumphing over people too maria set the harmony of god's natural order the blast to be stoppages he goes into combat is a symbolic ankle of the last giant know i stopped there oh joy that with any final questions the first question is what is it do you think that has made shakespeare's plays baccarat on the

stage all these centuries and has made him the most popular prime accused of the present time i ate some of you may think that i'm being hopelessly old fashioned but i believe the director lee was right i think it's the characters it is the living lives of the characters what shakespeare possessed of all other things was is it but a tater dill gowen asked they circumstances of his own age to reach of a liniment basic limits of human character and in addition to that of course he had the ability of a point or desire to give to those characters such words air is make them seeing living characters today it's the characters of shakespeare's which i'm quite sure and most of the youth in that even though

we tend to say what was not don't let's forget is nearly a case involving the players then i think we are in danger of operating shakespeare away from fat and the timing of the realm of the stuff and the second thing is ford is my mind but it is perfectly right and proper and worthy and stimulating to regard shakespeare as a mile from our contemporary we may be doing you know to him if we tried to make his place on the stage modern in inverted comments to impose friday and ideas or whatnot upon works which were created without the knowledge of a very small loans

which are so poorly and sometimes even distract to play i operated upon modern writer and the last thing are ice a bit of bad to say and this is not a question i simply question losses not a question i should the fed to say that shake spare in the stat shows it's our most i mean as most watts gives most to us when it is allowed to speak so was as possible in his own time