All the world's a stage and we are merely players upon it. We are rogues and fools, kings and paupers, the noble and the disdained, villains and villainous, exalted and sinister; we’re bumbling, egregious, appropriate, brash, unsullied, outspoken, comical, ignoble, cursed, wretched, supportive, distasteful, heinous, vibrant, wicked, pure, cruel, innocent, chaste, philosophical, ardent, ill tempered, tender, and lots, lots more.
We don't know what we're doing, half of us or more, while the rest know very well what's going on and are pulling strings that we don't see.
Through all of our many passion plays though, we at least learn something by the end. Maybe it's getting the joke in Act I or figuring out why Malvolio was so pissed at Sir Toby and Sir Andrew.
And then another production starts with new players in a new setting, or it's a mix of new players and old in a familiar one.
Whatever we learn through these plays never seems to be enough, there are so many things to learn, about life, relationships, about what constitutes good and bad. There are questions posed like "What is wisdom?" and "What is good rulership?". The handling of these many issues of course determines whether the players conclude the play with a happy ending or whether they leave the stage in tragic circumstance. We know the happy ones will be fine. The tragic will pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and somehow carry on.
William wrote about all this four hundred years ago and still this is going on. A lot of it coulda stopped right there, all the dysfunctional nonsense, but maybe William Shakespeare was way ahead of his time. So far ahead that his plays weren't even understood by many in the audience, who laughed at the funny physical parts but were saddened and in some way puzzled by the tragic ones. Certainly they could relate to those- their lives were for the most part short and brutish.
But that was then. In these now times people are exposed to a passion play oh, about every time they look at their phones. The amount of material that they are absorbing has to be accelerating their consciousnesses exponentially! Unlike the audience members in William's time, they don't have to wait in line for tickets and then, once inside, pay rapt attention to catch every word that is spoken or physical gesture that may indicate meaning. If they miss a critical part of whatever play they're absorbed in they can replay it, and if they get distracted by a text or something on Instagram they can restart the show. They can get back into it, pick it up where they left off, get a grip on what is going down and why. This intense daily focus by millions has to be making a dent, right?
Dig- you can get audio of the entire Bible, or whatever your Good Book is, and listen to it on your drive to work. Won't take long to get through the whole thing, which is exhausting to actually read from end to end (I tried to once, didn't get far). You can similarly download all the classic literature ever written, search out formulae for everything imaginable on the internet, and likewise do research on everything you could possibly have an interest in. None of this was available to the people at the Globe Theatre in the 1600's. We should be much, much smarter.
But are we? Ah- there's the rub- along with the smart stuff has come a flood of I won't say dumb stuff, because everything is educational in some way, let's just say it's distracting stuff. The wisdom of William is there on the internet, like it has been on the shelves of libraries for centuries. The question is: Is anybody reading it, and if they are, do they understand it?
Hamlet 2018
Mads Schmidt Rasmussen- Unsplash.com
Hamlet's 'nunnery' soliloquy, reimagined:
"To be or not to be (intelligent) is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of fate (distractions) or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them (educate oneself). To end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely (insults), the pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's (justice's) delay, the insolence (disrespect) of office, and the spurns that patient merit of th' unworthy takes (general abuse of good people by bad), when he himself might his quietus make with some books or a series of videos?
Who would fardels (burdens) bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after ignorance, the undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus ignorance does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution (the natural willingness to act) is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of dull'd thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action".