Two weeks ago Patrick Stewart, one of the founding members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, sat in front of an enthusiastic crowd of thousands- no, not at the Big House- at the Power Center. He said he believes theater can change the world. From October to November, Ann Arbor got to experience what he meant.
The Royal Shakespeare Company took up residency in Ann Arbor from October 24 to November 12, presenting three plays: "The Tempest", "Antony and Cleopatra" and "Julius Caesar" in addition to over one hundred other educational and cultural events. The tour de force concluded last Monday, with poignant closing remarks given by Professor Ralph Williams of the English Department. This was the third residency celebration of Shakespeare in Ann Arbor. Amazingly, four centuries since the writing of "Julius Caesar", worldwide audiences sell out theaters to see interpretations of the author's incomparable work. Why, after all these years, are we still so fascinated by Shakespeare?
Shakespeare is quite possibly the most read author of all time, his works having been translated in to almost every language in existence. His phrases permeate our popular culture (who knew the phrase "It's Greek to me" was from "Julius Caesar"? I sure didn't), and almost everyone has either read or seen Shakespeare performed. Shakespeare's plays can be a unifying force for people who may otherwise appear to have little in common. Perhaps he makes the world, which sometimes feels as though it is expanding faster than we can understand it, seem a little bit more manageable? Perhaps it is the infamous universality of his plays that keeps us coming back for more - maybe if we listen or watch a little closer, we'll see a reflection of ourselves in his words
The search for Shakespeare is one that I have enjoyed since "finding" Shakespeare when I was an undergraduate, but I must admit I was a bit surprised to the see the three plays chosen for the residency- a political murder, a middle-age love debacle and an old man's search for redemption? What could these three plays possibly have in common? I went on a mission to find out.
I began by weaving my way through performances, lectures, and panels and was instantly struck by the overwhelming turn out at the events surrounding the residency. Tickets were in such high demand for the plays I almost started picketing out in front of Power Center and at one panel discussion I was even turned away due to an overflowing room!
Fortuitously, I secured play tickets and I was off. "The Tempest" opened with a bang, transferring us to the heart of a storm and abandoning us not on a tropical isle, as is commonly the stage for the play, but to a deserted island in the artic. It was a bold choice and one that made every line said by the characters about wanting to get off the island all the more meaningful (if they were in the Caribbean would they really want to leave? I don't think so). The starkness of the setting only made the emotions of the characters more vivid- Prospero in a rage over how to avenge his forced exile to the island, Miranda his daughter in a daze of love over only the third man she's ever seen and two of the strangest characters Shakespeare ever created: Ariel (a spirit?) and Caliban (a slave?), both of whom were acted in ways that expressed an amazing range of emotions for such difficult parts. Patrick Stewart was poignant in his journey from a scorned, vengeful king, to a magnanimous, forgiving pariah.
In "Antony and Cleopatra", our senses were attacked by more than 30 scene changes, the play shifting us from Egypt to Rome and back again. Simultaneous battles between armies and fiercely independent lovers put in relief the characteristically tragic failure of two Shakespeare characters to find lasting love. I felt empowered and weakened at the same by Cleopatra and left feeling confused by what their love was supposed to mean after all the blood and death.
"Julius Caesar", for whom the last night of the residency marked the production's final performance of the play after a two and a half year run, was a bold and bloody presentation. After stabbing Caesar "three and thirty times" the director leaves the killers in their white robes doused in blood and has Caesar reappear at various points throughout the rest of the play. And when Cassius exclaims, blood of Caesar still wet on his hands:
"How many ages hence, Shall this our lofty scene be acted over, In states unborn and accents yet unknown!"
We cannot help but cringe at the accuracy of his statement in the modern context. While the act of killing Caesar is perhaps nothing compared to what we see on television these days, in the theater it is much more difficult to look away.
So what did these three plays end up having in common? For starters, they had the same actors. The unique thing about this residency is there was only one crew of actors doing all three plays. This meant you got to see an actor go from ambivalent to serious to love-struck, showing us the raw emotions of the plays and its characters. Watching Shakespeare's characters strut and brood across the stage in all three plays it struck me that what all three had in common was just that- thinking. The internal angst of each: Prospero, Antony and Brutus, was drawn out across the stage for us to judge. Dilemmas were presented with no clear solutions. Such as is in life, no?
I suddenly realized sitting in the theater that what Shakespeare did was made it okay to have angst and not know how to fix it. His characters, especially in these three plays, show us that being confused, jealous, conflicted, infatuated is all part of who we are. Prospero opens "The Tempest" ready to seek revenge on his enemies but then, much as the ship that crashes in to his island, he gets lost and slowly ends up in a place different then the one he envisioned: forgiving his enemies. So perhaps what we go in search of we may not be what we find in the end. And that's okay. Shakespeare may not have been the first to capture this idea but he surely was one of the best.
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