Sunday, February 6, 2011

To Be Or Not to Be...

Ah Shakespeare...one of the greatest playwrights ever. Every year the Denver Center Theater Company (http://www.denvercenter.org/) always includes a Shakespeare play in it's season and this year it was A Midsummer's Night Dream and it was fabulous, just great. It's one's of Shakespeare's comedies and a rather complicated story with fairies and misuse of love spell on humans. It's a wonderful show.

Now I know that not everyone has an appreciation of Shakespeare and I think I know why. Most of of, at some point in our educational career, were required to read Shakespeare. But the problem is that Shakespeare was not meant to be read, he didn't write books, he wrote plays and the words he wrote weren't meant to be read, they were meant to be spoken (and there is a huge difference). I will readily admit that reading Shakespeare is really hard and can be extremely boring but to see Shakespeare being performed is a whole other story. When you got to a Shakespeare play you get lost in the story. It doesn't matter that you may not understand every single word the actor is saying, you'll get the gist of it and then enjoy it. Shakespeare wrote wonderful stories, drama and comedy, he wrote about death and romance and farce and hatred. There are love scenes and sword battles, there is something for everyone.

So maybe give Shakespeare another try. Maybe see one of his comedies (one your first time around a drama like Hamlet might be too much). If you can't see a theatrical production (and by the way, Colorado has a Shakespeare festival ever year in Boulder (http://www.coloradoshakes.org/) that is also awesome), I recommend the 1968 movie version of Romeo and Juliet. Yes, it's an older movie but it's good.

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