by Jessica Collins

Created on: May 23, 2008

Some of Shakespeare's writing does border on being incomprehensible, but I believe this is because it was never meant to be read in book form, but experienced in the form of live performance on stage. Most writing when taken out of context becomes more difficult to understand, and Shakespeare's writing is no different.

I read all the classic Shakespearean plays in high school, but it wasn't until college that I really began to understand them. In college I took a class on Shakespearean literature, and unlike the classes I had attended before where a reading assignment would be handed out and a short essay on the first act was expected the next day, the professor in this particular class set a stack of DVDs on the front desk. That quarter, I watched made for television versions and movie versions of some of Shakespeare's most famous plays, including Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth. The language was the same, the dialogue taken directly from Shakespeare's writing, but seeing the setting, the actions of the characters, and hearing the way the writing was spoken aloud brought to light aspects of Shakespeare's plays that I had missed entirely by just reading the text. I began to understand that visualization was key to comprehension.

I also participated in a study abroad for six weeks in England studying works of Shakespeare. While overseas, I attended several live performances of Shakespeare's plays at the Globe Theatre in London and at the Rose Theatre in Stratford upon Avon. The most impressive performance I saw was of one of Shakespeare's histories, Richard II. The histories have always been my least favorite works of Shakespeare because I could never follow what was happening as I read them. But seeing Richard II performed on stage, by the first all-woman troupe to perform it, was an enlightening experience. I was able to gain insight into the historical events that had inspired the play, could remember the names of the characters and how they related to one another, and found myself on the edge of my seat when the battles were being fought. I even wrote one of my final class essays on the play and received a top grade, all because of the understanding I gained from seeing Shakespeare performed as it was meant to be.

The way the Shakespeare is taught today in many classrooms makes incomprehension inevitable for all but the most applied readers. It helps when teachers and professors offer some background to the time that Shakespeare lived in and the setting of his plays, but to truly get the full effect of his writing, to appreciate the brilliance and skill with which Shakespeare constructed his plays, one must experience them as they were meant to be experienced - performed live on stage.

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