PEOPLE SHOULDN’T BE TOLD THEY WON’T LIKE SHAKESPEARE. Where I take issue with the director of the Globe is about her statements that she is bored with Shakespeare and that she (a distinguished director) can’t stay awake reading him because of the difficult language. Yesterday’s Blackadder post states the problem. Many people do harbor fear and hatred for Shakespeare plays in part because of unfortunate experiences in school. One thing that a lot of people learn in school is to give up on certain subjects (for me it included art and music—they were right about the music).
I had a friend who had never seen a play in a theater until on a family trip to Europe with his high school age children he went to the Globe and fell in love with the theater. Afterwards he would call me from time to time about plays he had gone to and loved. (The Importance of Being Earnest made an especially big impression on him.)