Yesterday, my father and I saw a Company of Fools' excellent production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It. It was a lot of fun, and very funny. The environment was very relaxed--people sitting around on towels or in lawn chairs, many of them with their children, and some with their pets. This is how I prefer to see Shakespeare handled--for audiences, rather than for students and scholars.
Don't misinterpret me--I'm not saying that schools should stop teaching Shakespeare. He's the greatest writer in the history of the English language, and young people should study him. But few fiction writers, if any, have ever written anything for the sole purpose of being studied in schools. That's why I think that live productions of Shakespeare are so important today--they help remind people that, although he's difficult, he's also wonderfully entertaining. His plays can be funny or tragic. His characters are impossibly eloquent, but they're also some of the most believable and human ever written. However good and however convenient Shakespeare's word may be on the page, we should remember that his plays were meant to be spoken and performed, and that's still the best way to really appreciate the Bard's genius.
It's a shame that so many people think of his work (or any great author's work, for that matter) as little more than particularly difficult homework assignments.
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