# A really damning review of a Shakespeare play **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 13, 2012, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763 "2012-05-13T10:44:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/1 "2012-05-13T10:44:24Z")
It should be impossible to go wrong with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, right? [Wrong](http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/a-midsummer-nights-clusterfuck/Content?oid=2231348). Of course, not being in New York, I’m in no danger of seeing this production. I just enjoy flow of the language he uses. Every word counts. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/2 "2012-05-13T11:11:35Z")
“These shadows \*have \*offended.” Bravo. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/3 "2012-05-13T11:44:31Z")
Great headline. Last year a friend offered me a ticket to the [Bell Shakespeare Company](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Shakespeare) performance of _King Lear_. I begged off saying I had studied it at school and knew whodunit and that I am not really a Shakespeare kind of guy. Imagine my disappointment in finding out later that my friend had in mid performance, with Lear wandering around lost, leaped to his feet to loudly criticize the staging. His daughter thought the outburst was justified but as she said, “well, you know dad.” I had never heard of Shakespeare being heckled before but perhaps there is more on the cards? ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/4 "2012-05-13T12:19:53Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > I had never heard of Shakespeare being heckled before but perhaps there is more on the cards? With any luck. Shakespeare not only is boring, it’s pretentious twaddle. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/5 "2012-05-13T13:26:46Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > With any luck. > > Shakespeare not only is boring, it’s pretentious twaddle. Cute. There may be pretentious people who pretend to like Shakespeare, but Shakespeare’s work is not, by any stretch, innately pretentious. Kinda the opposite, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/6 "2012-05-13T13:31:00Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > With any luck. > > Shakespeare not only is boring, it’s pretentious twaddle. At first I was compelled to leap to Shakespeare’s defense, but then I remembered. I used to feel just like Kenm seems to feel. When I was in high school we read three plays and that was it. We just read them. No performances to view, live or filmed. I too thought the plays were boring. Then I saw “Measure for Measure” done, in a BBC production. I didn’t know you could laugh at Shakespeare, or that there were sex jokes and foolin’ around in the plays. This encouraged me to see more and read more. Perhaps Kenm has only read or seen some of the tragedies I saw. If so, I encourage Kenm to branch out and see “Measure for Measure”, “Much Ado About Nothing”(I loved the Branagh/Thompson movie), or “Twelfth Night” These are what I would choose to present to young people, to interest them in Shakespeare. Then, to link him to current times, or any time for that matter, read the Duke of Burgundy’s speech as he encourages the kings of France and England to come to a peace agreement. It’s in “Henry V”. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/7 "2012-05-13T13:46:08Z")
Oh, sure. It’s easy to see how somebody stuck in boring ol’ lit class in high school could be intimidated by Shakespeare, especially if all they’ve got to go on is words on the page. Language has changed a good deal since Shakespeare’s time, and many modern readers are put off by it. This may somehow make the work seem “pretentious” or something, but his work was entertainment for the masses and not meant for some small coterie of aristocrats and intellectuals. ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/8 "2012-05-13T14:24:42Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Cute. > > There may be pretentious people who pretend to like Shakespeare, but Shakespeare’s work is not, by any stretch, innately pretentious. Kinda the opposite, in fact. _As you know, I have striven hard to open English eyes to the emptiness of Shakespeare’s philosophy, to the superficiality and second-handedness of his morality, to his weakness and incoherence as a thinker, to his snobbery, his vulgar prejudices, his ignorance, his disqualifications of all sorts for the philosophic eminence claimed for him._ Bernard Shaw letter to Tolstoy ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/9 "2012-05-13T15:06:52Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > At first I was compelled to leap to Shakespeare’s defense, but then I remembered. I used to feel just like Kenm seems to feel. When I was in high school we read three plays and that was it. We just read them. No performances to view, live or filmed. I too thought the plays were boring. That’s where and how my opinion formed. But it didn’t change no matter how many movies (and only one live play I _forced_ myself to attend until the end) I’ve seen. My mind cannot stay focused. I end up counting the ceiling stipples. The plays are hugely boring. A ghost story wrapped in pretentious verbosity is still just a ghost story. Why anyone would attend the same plays for 500 years is astonishing; it’s not as though no one knows the plots, old when Shakespeare stole his versions. Shakespeare aficianados could be swapped with fans who attend endless Erasurehead showings. Too many in each can mouth every word from beginning to end. The only difference is the price of the ticket. If ever I found myself at another Shakespeare movie, or Og forbid a live play, I’d be tempted to stand and yell, “For Christ’s sake, people, get a life!” and walk out before I’m stoned to death. Shakespeare ticket prices merely out-Erasureheads Erasurehead. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/10 "2012-05-13T15:14:35Z")
I remember being 13, too. Haters gotta hate. Mostly from ignorance, but sometimes because they just can’t handle sublime. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/11 "2012-05-13T15:40:24Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I remember being 13, too. Me too. My teacher when I was that age showed us the Polanski Macbeth which, to be frank, is just the version a bunch of young teens want to see while slogging through the text. ---
**Author:** ![Feyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/fbc32d/32.png) [@Feyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feyrat)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/12 "2012-05-13T15:46:41Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > It should be impossible to go wrong with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, right? [Wrong](http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/a-midsummer-nights-clusterfuck/Content?oid=2231348). > > Of course, not being in New York, I’m in no danger of seeing this production. > > I just enjoy flow of the language he uses. Every word counts. It’s sad. Not being in New York, I’m in no danger of seeing it either. But after reading that review, I kinda _want_ to. It just sounds so hilariously awful. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/13 "2012-05-13T16:04:55Z")
> [@newcomer](#): > > _As you know, I have striven hard to open English eyes to the emptiness of Shakespeare’s philosophy, to the superficiality and second-handedness of his morality, to his weakness and incoherence as a thinker, to his snobbery, his vulgar prejudices, his ignorance, his disqualifications of all sorts for the philosophic eminence claimed for him._ > > Bernard Shaw letter to Tolstoy OK. And? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/14 "2012-05-13T16:09:57Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > Shakespeare ticket prices merely out-Erasureheads Erasurehead. Is this some sort of synthpop adaptation of a David Lynch film? Because I would _totally_ pay to see that. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/15 "2012-05-13T16:13:18Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > It should be impossible to go wrong with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, right? [Wrong](http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/a-midsummer-nights-clusterfuck/Content?oid=2231348). If you make the “right” choices you can screw anything up. This has me trying to think of the worst Shakespeare productions I’ve seen, but I don’t think I’ve had to sit through any real disasters. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/16 "2012-05-13T16:24:31Z")
Now _that_ is how you snark. Great stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/17 "2012-05-13T16:42:11Z")
Until you’ve seen a production of _Hamlet_ at the Hollywood Fight Club Theater, you haven’t seen the worst ways in which Shakespeare can be mangled. As for “pretentious twaddle”, that charge could be levied selectively at a few plays, such as _The Life of Timon of Athens_ or the _Henry VI_ trilogy, to blast the entire oeuvre of Shakespeare speaks less to the quality and entertainment value of the plays than it does of an entrenched vulgarity of the critic. Many of Shakespeare’s comedies are the furthest thing from “high brow” or “pretentious”, although any play can be mangled by a director with a vision that extends past his talent and expertise. Even some of the tragedies and historicals–_Hamlet_ in particular–is full of humor. As for the language, while it is true that the language itself has changed since the Bard’s time, the fact is that the Shakespeare used the words as tools; the wordplay is (as it is in, say, Mamet or _Arrested Development_) part of the pleasure. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/18 "2012-05-13T18:59:34Z")
> [@newcomer](#): > > _As you know, I have striven hard to open English eyes to the emptiness of Shakespeare’s philosophy, to the superficiality and second-handedness of his morality, to his weakness and incoherence as a thinker, to his snobbery, his vulgar prejudices, his ignorance, his disqualifications of all sorts for the philosophic eminence claimed for him._ > > Bernard Shaw letter to Tolstoy If you’re trying to use this quote to support the position that Shakespeare isn’t any good as a **playwright** , it doesn’t work. Shaw was making a valid, if exaggerated, point that some English Shakespeare-worshippers overestimated his importance or profundity as a **philosopher** (a notable example, though later than the works Shaw was complaining about, is W. C. Curry’s 1939 _Shakespeare’s Philosophical Patterns_). There’s definitely a case to be made there. But it’s got nothing to do with whether Shakespeare’s **plays** are well-written and enjoyable. Shakespeare was an entertainer and a poet, not a metaphysical pundit; any philosophical complexity or originality exhibited in his works is pretty hit-or-miss, but that’s not relevant to the literary or theatrical quality of his writing. It is not in any way a criticism of Shakespeare’s plays to point out, as Shaw does, that he is not really entitled to any “philosophic eminence” in the canon of the world’s Great Thinkers. ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/19 "2012-05-14T18:48:47Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > If you’re trying to use this quote to support the position that Shakespeare isn’t any good as a **playwright** , it doesn’t work. Agreed. It doesn’t. [Tolstoy essay does it.](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27726/27726-h/27726-h.htm) NOTE: Shaw sent his letter to Tolstoy BEFORE he read Tolstoy’s essay on Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![wheresmymind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/91b2a8/32.png) [@wheresmymind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wheresmymind)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763/20 "2012-05-14T19:01:15Z")
_psst,_ **Kenm** : It’s Eraserhead. With 3 “E’s,” no “U’s.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-really-damning-review-of-a-shakespeare-play/621763.md?page=2)