Wait – There Are Playwrights Other Than William Shakespeare?

Currently Reading: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

I don’t have a lot of experience reading plays.

The last play I read – which I honestly didn’t even get through in its entirety – was Doctor Faustus for my British literature class. Before that, it was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in my senior year of high school. Not only has it been a while, but I’m pretty sure this is close to the extent of my list. The only other plays I can remember reading are The Importance of Being Earnest and Streetcar Named Desire. Again, my experience is pretty limited.

Well, there’s one rather significant clause to that statement.

I don’t have a lot of experience reading non-Shakespearean plays.

When it came to Shakespeare, I just couldn’t seem to get enough. Although I had been exposed to his work in high school, it wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that I became addicted. My professor for my Introduction to Shakespeare class was amazing and she ignited a passion in me for the Bard’s work that has ultimately led to me where I am today (it’s pretty unusual to work at the Folger Shakespeare Library and not be a fan). I took every Shakespeare course offered regularly, a senior seminar just on Othello, and when this didn’t satiate my appetite, I designed an independent study for myself in which I was allowed the opportunity to read every play I hadn’t read in his body of work and discuss them in weekly, one-on-one sessions with my professor. Best class ever? I think yes!

My point is my exposure to reading plays has been almost exclusively Shakespearean.

I didn’t realize it, but this has very much affected my expectations for what the text of a play will include. However, this became instantly clear to me when I picked up Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

To be clear, I never expected every play to have the same language found in Shakespeare plays; I understand that aren’t written in the Early Modern era are not going to have early modern language (give me some credit). Instead, what took me aback from the first lines of Death of Salesman is the complexity, not of the lines, but of what comes in between the lines.

I’ve gotten so used to reading plays with Shakespeare’s famous minimalist approach to stage directions and setting descriptions that I forgot that isn’t the standard. Frankly, I was pretty annoyed with the detail in Miller’s directions and descriptions. While I’m sure the details made it easier to make Miller’s imagined world a reality, his writing felt much more restrictive. By limiting his stage directions and scene settings to things like “exits” or “Street in Verona,” Shakespeare allows his actors and directors much more freedom and opportunity for creativity; they aren’t limited with who they can cast or how the set must be designed or how a line must be said.

Admittedly, the minimalist approach may not have always been a choice. Shakespeare was much more limited in what he could do given the technological parameters of the stage for which he wrote. It was kind of fun to see the things Miller could do with the numerous lighting and sound options available to him, like creating simultaneous scenes in the past and present or using a particular song to associate with a character in his youth versus in adulthood. All these complex time shifts in and out of the past are probably only possible with detailed stage directions and perhaps if Shakespeare had access to the lights and sounds to do it, he would have also made his directions more specific.

Aside from these Shakespeare-lover biases, the play itself was rather interesting. It’s a sad look at the life of a poor salesman, Willy Loman, who has worked himself to the bone his whole life only to be screwed over by his company in the end. It shows how he’s become estranged from his sons and is a bleak look at what happens when he can’t let go of his delusional hopes from them. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the story would be sad, given that the title tells you that the main character will die, but what did surprise me was that I actually felt sad. For most of the play, I was thoroughly irritated with Willy Loman. I was frustrated with how stupidly he lived his life, how he wouldn’t listen to his sons, and how he was literally living in the past – through flashbacks. Yet, in the end, when he was gone, I found myself moved in spite of my dislike for him.

I’d very much like to see a performance of this now that I’ve read it as I’m sure it’s much easier to understand the time shifts when they are acted out and I would hope that an actor would be able to evoke the sympathetic qualities in Willy Loman that I couldn’t find until the end.

But let’s be honest, I’m going to see a Shakespeare play instead.

A Round of Applause for Reading Plays

Currently Reading: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

(Yes, I’m giving Invisible Man another shot as I feel invincible after Moby Dick and I’d really like to finish this book before the end of the year.)

Cliché as it may sound, there’s something magical about seeing a live performance of a play. The lights, the costumes, the makeup, the sets – everything and everyone has been transformed to transport you to another world; to sweep you away from whatever is occurring in your life and suck you into the fictitious world of the actors. The scene is set, the lights dim, the curtain rises…

… and you’re sitting in your comfy chair at  home, snuggled in your bathrobe with a good book to begin?

Even though we’ve all done it – most likely in a Shakespeare unit in school – there’s something slightly incongruous about reading a play. Although there are plays that fall into the genre of “closet dramas” (which are plays that are intended to be read and give little to no consideration of the actual staging of the story), most plays are meant to be performed; they were written to be turned into a production that others could watch rather than read.

For this reason, a play is often enjoyed more when it’s acted out. Case and point: I took my roommate to see the Folger’s production of Romeo and Juliet this past Friday. It was his first time seeing Shakespeare performed live and at the end he asked, “Why don’t they teach Shakespeare this way? It makes so much more sense!”

For my roommate – and I’m sure for many others – seeing a production of a Shakespeare play actually makes the language much more accessible and therefore the story more enjoyable. He was simply astonished that Shakespeare was so often read like a novel when it’s not one; it’s writing that’s meant to be spoken and heard, not read.

So why is it that we consistently read plays? How on earth does this benefit us?

After giving it some thought, I’ve decided that there are several reasons we shouldn’t just stop reading plays entirely.

First, a play can still be considered a work of literature even if it’s a slightly different format from other works. Plays can be just as richly infused with themes, symbols, plot structures, and character developments as novels. Thus reading a play affords one the opportunity to dissect the literary devices used and to deeply analyze the story and characters that watching a play just doesn’t allow for as the action in a production is continuous. The audience can’t take time to ponder a particularly insightful monologue or sort through a confusing exchange of dialogue at a live performance as the actors will move on with the story whether you’re ready to move on or not.

Second, reading a play without seeing any performance of it means you’re working with a blank slate; you won’t have any preconceived notions of how a line should be said or how a character should look. A performance can very much color the way you view a play. This is especially true if a director or actor has decided to highlight certain aspects that you may not have thought were important. Perhaps he believes one theme is the main message of the play, but in reality, it’s just his perception of it. Maybe an actor decides to play to extreme subtext. Now you will be much more likely to only notice that theme or to read that subtext, which may or not be there. In much the same way that a movie version of a book can ruin the way you read that book afterwards – I’m looking at you Harry Potter films – seeing a play can also ruin your opportunity to let your imagination do what it will with the text provided.

Third, and probably the most important, reading a play allows for quality control. Again, a production of a play is subject to so many variables – like the director’s or the actors’ choices – and sometimes those variables don’t just affect the interpretation, they affect the quality. Ever see a production of Guys and Dolls in which Sky Masterson is going through puberty? Ever go to a play and the main actress has an extremely annoying habit of flapping her arms a certain way or maybe she just has a voice that sounds like nails on a chalkboard? Ever see a performance of Jekyll and Hyde in which the title character(s) has a lisp? I have. It’s not pleasant. If a play is a really good play, the text can stand alone. Reading it saves it from a potential mauling and therefore can save your opinion of it.

Don’t get me wrong. I do mostly agree that a play should be seen. I’m just arguing that maybe there’s some logic to the idea of introducing a play as text rather than performance. Perhaps the best option is to do both.