Rosen - Whats So Special About Shakespeare

For Harold and Connie who introduced me to Shaks.
M.R.

Alas, poor Tim, he knows me well!
S.N.

Liberty! Freedom!

Tyranny is dead!

Run hence, proclaim,

cry it about the streets.

Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1

I ts the middle of the night on the edge of London, a few days after Christmas day, 1598. The River Thames is frozen over, snow is falling. The roofs of the timbered houses and the nearby fields are white with it. Four buildings stand higher than the nearby houses, shops, bowling-alleys, gambling houses and taverns a windmill, a church and two theatres. One of the theatres is called the Curtain, and the other simply the Theatre. They are tall wooden buildings that have only been there for ten years or so but in that time their walls have shaken to the sound of swords clashing in fencing matches, actors crying of murder or lost love, and audiences roaring with laughter.

But tonight sixteen men are pulling down the Theatre. Two of them are brothers. They run a company of actors who put on plays, and with them theres a builder and his workmen.

As the men hurry about their work, its clear that whats going on is secret and must be done as quickly as possible. Through the night the workmen load timbers onto wagons.

Two strangers arrive and start quizzing them. The workmen lie and say they are only taking down the parts of the building that are decaying. Really, they are dismantling the whole theatre and taking it somewhere else. Its a risky business because if it can be proved that they are stealing, they will all be hanged and their severed heads put on show.

But before long the men are taking the timbers across London Bridge to Southwark, where the theatre will be rebuilt and become known as one of the worlds most famous theatres: the Globe.

Those two theatres on the edge of London were where the first plays of William Shakespeare were put on. But Shakespeare wasnt the kind of writer who sent off his plays and sat around hoping someone might perform them. He was an actor who worked in the same company as those men who dismantled the Theatre, and whats more, he was one of the new owners of the Globe.

In the four hundred years since then, he has become one of the worlds most famous writers.

W atching Shakespeares plays is like being invited into a house full of amazing rooms. Go through a door at the top of the house and you will meet a ghost walking the battlements of a castle at night. You will hear him telling a young man that he is the ghost of his father, the old king. Whats more, the ghost reveals that he was murdered by his own brother. And then the ghost says:

If thou didst ever thy dear father love

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5

What will the young man do?

Walk into one of the rooms and you will come across a rich man yelling at his daughter because she wont marry the man he has chosen for her.

He shouts:

An you be mine, Ill give you to my friend.

An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 5

An if

But the girl has secretly married another man.

Whats going to happen?

Move along into another room and a group of men are whispering amongst themselves. They are dressed in the clothes of Ancient Rome and they are working out how they are going to murder the future king:

And, gentle friends,

Lets kill him boldly, but not wrathfully.

Lets carve him as a dish fit for the gods,

Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.

Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 1

Will they do it?

If they do, will they get away with it?

And out in the garden of the house, a bunch of crazy people have come up with a great practical joke. Theyve tricked a stuffy, mean-minded man into thinking that the sad, beautiful lady of the house has fallen in love with him. He is reading what he thinks is a love letter to him from the lady. He says:

for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me

I thank my stars, I am happy.

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5

But the letters a forgery, written by the bunch of crazy people now watching him while he reads. What will happen next time the stuffy man meets the lady?

There are lots more amazing rooms, and if you go into them you will find trial scenes, battles, love potions, cruel kings, civil wars, assassinations, riots, witches, fairies, jesters, even a statue that comes to life. You will also meet people with deep and powerful emotions wild jealousy, crazed hunger for power, terrible sadness, great happiness, sneering contempt.

All this may sound extraordinary, but Shakespeare lived in extraordinary times.

S o what was it like in England when Shakespeare was writing? These were dangerous times even for a writer!

A few years earlier, one of the most famous playwrights of the day, Christopher Marlowe, had been stabbed to death during a fight. Another playwright, Ben Jonson, had killed someone and managed to get off with nothing more than having his left thumb branded, supposedly with a T for Tyburn the place where hed be executed if he was caught again. And, strange as it may seem, these were especially dangerous times if you were the king or queen.

Shakespeare lived under two monarchs: Elizabeth I and James I. Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London by her half-sister. Her father, Henry VIII, had her mother beheaded, and Elizabeth herself ordered the execution of her second cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots