Shakespeare BIrthday

SHAKESPEARE STILL STRONG IN RUSSIA

RUSSIANS CELEBRATE THE POET'S BIRTH

By Stephen Wilson

William Shakespeare

MOSCOW -- "As to Shakespeare I could hardly sleep that night...... My first master

in philosophy , and that might seem quite strange to many people ,

was Shakespeare. From him I learnt this menacing and troubling

phrase ; 'The Time is out of joint '. What can one do when such a

thing happens , When the horrors of human existence unveil themselves

to men {to Shakespeare} who become - as time itself is - out of joint?"

stated the famous Russian Philosopher Leon Shestov,[1866-1938},

who was deeply mesmerized when he discovered Shakespeare.

Some Russians might even claim that it is no coincidence that

Shakespeare's birth , 23rd April , which is on Saint George's Day ,

is no accident. This is because Saint George is not only the patron

Saint of England but Moscow. And schools in Moscow continue to

perform his plays with beaming devotion . A 16 year old by the name

of Natasha, who attends a Classical Gymnasium which specializes

in Greek and Latin near Prospect Mir metro station, stated :" I think

Shakespeare is a great genius. I watched my school put on a

performance of Midnight Summer Dream and it was done in the

original. Everything was great. The acting ,decoration and stage

was fantastic. The pupils who performed were often ex-pupils who

were the schools best actors "; The performance had been organised

by the English teacher Marina Yevgenia at the end of the academic

year of 2017. The teacher gives up her Sundays to organize such

performances.

In the town of Voronezh, a conference on Shakespeare will take

place on May 26 to 27th.

The influence of Shakespeare on Russian history as well as culture

can assume unreal forms. It not only surfaces in the musical

symphonies of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet , and Boris Pasternak's

poetry but in the name given to the unfortunate Tsar , Pavel the 1st

who was called : 'The Russian Hamlet'. The Tsar, who was the son

of Catherine the Great, felt embittered when he learnt that his mother

had plotted the murder of her husband Peter the 3rd. Pavel claimed that

the ghosts of Peter the 3rd had visited him and told him to avenge his

death. When in Venice , Pavel entered the theatre , an actor told them

to halt a performance of Hamlet as there" Would be two Hamlets in the

theatre : one on the stage and the other in the hall" . His counsellors

did not want to encourage his belief in emulating Hamlet in court.

What is it that inspires such interest in Shakespeare from the Russians?

Perhaps it is due to his timeless appeal as a brilliant storyteller . Daniel

Ogan, an American Indian storyteller told me that an effective storyteller

should narrate a story with such intensity that it burns your skin like a

red hot poker. His grandfather even burnt him with a red hot poker lest

he forget the lesson! 

Shakespeare certainly does this. Perhaps his poetry, deep philosophizing , and intense dramatization of questions many people prefer to avoid touches something deep in their souls. And the language is hauntingly beautiful. Others point to an implicit moral message which is subtle. Shestov described Shakespeare as being 'non-judgmental.

Unlike Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky he was never preachy. Yet some implicit

morals for children can be identified in his work 'The Tempest' where

Prospero , the disposed king , forgives those who have stolen his throne.

The group , 'Flying Bananas' entertains children in Moscow with their

performance of 'The Tempest'.They state : 'Our electronic music

interpretation of Shakespeare's tale of redemption and forgiveness will

fill your with feelings of rapture..as you enter the aquascape of the rich

stage world of art and illusion which Shakespeare invokes.'

Of course, many famous people have claimed Shakespeare never even

wrote his plays. Sigmund Freud and Mark Twain claimed he did not.

Charlie Chaplin declared that such a person from a humble background

could not have written in an aristocratic tone of voice. They also declare

that his lack of a university education disqualifies him from being the

author. This is nothing original about this. Shakespeare, in his time,

was snobbishly derided as an 'upstart crow' for lacking a university education.

This logic has to explain how Scotland's best poet, Robert Burns , wrote

brilliant poetry. He never entered university. A university education can

often be overestimated.

It seems that Shakespeare may well have benefited from a superb

classical education in his youth. Shakespeare 's education at a grammar

school involved learning not only how to speak English sweetly and

melodically but mastering the art of rhetoric. This art involved learning

to argue a question from different perspectives encouraging a fresh and

novel open-mindedness. The school offered students lessons in how

to 'to be taught to pronounce everything audibly, leisurely, distinctly and

naturally : sounding out especially the last syllable that each word may

be understood. ' Peter Ackroyd , a writer, wrote : 'It is a good training

for the theatre. It was also a curriculum that encouraged self-assertion.'

It is worth pointing out that Shakespeare lived in turbulent times where

a police state kept a baleful eye on him. This was a time where the

poor were driven off the land by enclosures, and the recurrent plague

devastated and decimated London. The theatre could be closed

down by a whim and rigid censorship. Alleged witches as well as

outspoken Catholics were tortured to death. An example of the

repression is that the great playwright Christopher Marlowe died

in highly suspicious circumstances and the author of 'The Spanish

Tragedy ', Thomas Kyd, was practically tortured to death. After those

two deaths , Shakespeare had no literary rivals! Shakespeare was

almost arrested for performing a subversive play on the eve of

a rebellion by the Earl of Essex Richard the second.

Perhaps the Russian Poet Boris Pasternak made some parallels

with the repression in Russia and felt an affinity with Shakespeare.

What is deeply moving about the characters of Shakespeare is that

they are wholly alive and endowed with an inexorable boundless

energy. They readily acknowledge life with a rare audacity. It is

suffice to quote a line from 'The Twelfth Night' when Orsino states

'If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it ..."