Why did Shakespeare love the theater? Lovers in Shakespeare

Have you noticed that the main character of Shakespeare's tragedies gradually ages? We can judge this because the chronology of Shakespeare's plays is known. Young Romeo (Romeo and Juliet, c. 1595), thirty-year-old Hamlet (Hamlet, c. 1600), courageous and mature warrior Othello (Othello, c. 1603), old King Lear (King Lear, ca. 1605) and the eternal, ageless Prospero (The Tempest, ca. 1611). This can be explained by some psychological or philosophical reasons; we can say that the author of the plays himself is growing up, his lyrical hero is getting old and wiser. But there is a much simpler explanation: all these roles were written for one actor - for Richard Burbage, who headed the theater troupe of which Shakespeare was a member. Burbage played Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Prospero and many other roles. And as Burbage ages, so does Shakespeare's hero.

This is just one example of how Shakespeare's texts are inextricably linked to the theater for which Shakespeare wrote. He didn't write for the reader. He, like most people of his time, did not treat plays as a form of literature. Drama at that time was just beginning to become literature. Plays were treated as material for actors, as raw material for the theater. There is no need to assume that Shakespeare, when writing his plays, was thinking about his descendants, about what future generations would say. He didn't just write plays, he wrote performances. He was a playwright with a director's mind. He wrote each role for certain actors in his troupe. He adapted the properties of the characters to the properties of the actors themselves. For example, we should not be surprised when, at the end of Hamlet, Gertrude says of Hamlet that he is fat and short of breath. This is shocking: how is this possible? Hamlet - the embodiment of grace, the embodiment of sophistication and refined melancholy - is suddenly obese and short of breath? This can be explained simply: Burbage, playing Hamlet, was no longer a boy, but a man of rather powerful, strong build.

Mandelstam in one article  “Art Theater and Word” (1923). There is a wonderful formula: “The direction is hidden in the word.” In Shakespeare's word this direction is hidden (or revealed) in the most obvious way. He writes performances, he creates mise-en-scenes.

There is a moment in Bulgakov’s “Theatrical Novel” when the main character Maksudov, who has just written the story “Black Snow,” suddenly, unexpectedly for himself, turns it into a play. He sits at the table, next to some mangy cat, and an old lamp above his head. And suddenly it seems to him that there is a box in front of him on the table in which small figures are moving. Here someone shoots, here someone falls dead, here someone plays the piano, and so on. That's when he realized he was writing a play.

Shakespeare had something similar. Only in front of him was not a box stage, but the open space of the Globe Theater, with its stage crashing into the auditorium, so that the audience surrounded it on three sides - and therefore the mise-en-scenes were not planar, but three-dimensional. And Hamlet, saying “to be or not to be,” saw around him, nearby, the attentive faces of the audience. The audience for whom and only for whom all these plays were written. Shakespeare was part of this theatrical reality. He lived his whole life among actors, among actors' conversations, among meager props. He was a theater man. He built his plays in this specific stage space. He not only wrote roles for the actors of his troupe, he adapted the structure of his plays to the structure of the Globe stage or those theaters where his troupe played.

The Globe had three stage spaces: there was a main stage, there was an upper stage that hung over the main stage like a balcony, and there was an internal stage that was separated from the main stage by a curtain. There was no curtain in front of the main stage. Shakespeare structures his play so that it is clear where a certain scene takes place, how the use of the upper stage, the inner stage, and the use of the hut at the very top of the stage where the lifting mechanisms were attached change. That is, he writes a play. And what a fascinating task - which we have been doing with students for many years - to extract a performance from the text of a play! From the text of Hamlet we extract the premiere of Hamlet, as Hamlet was played at the Globe in 1601, when this play was written.

If you read Shakespeare's play from this point of view, then from these pages suddenly living faces, living staging, living theatrical metaphors begin to appear before you. This is perhaps the most remarkable thing. And this proves that Shakespeare was a theater man to the core and that theater, in essence, both then and now, is the main instrument with the help of which Shakespeare communicates with the world. No matter how important philological research and research into Shakespeare's philosophical ideas are, his world is, first of all, a stage, a theater.

The absence of a curtain in front of the main stage defines the structure of the play. For example, if someone is killed on stage - and in Shakespeare, as you know, this happens often, especially in the early plays. In some "Titus Andronicus" there is a lot of blood, the play begins with the remains of twenty, in my opinion, four sons of the hero being brought onto the stage  “Fourteen murders, thirty-four corpses, three severed hands, one severed tongue - such is the inventory of horrors that fill this tragedy.” A. A. Anikst. Titus Andronicus. // William Shakespeare. Collected works. T. 2. M., 1958.. And what’s not there - cut off hands, cut off tongues. Shakespeare kills all the time. What to do with the dead on stage? Where should I put them? In a modern theater, the lights are turned off or the curtain is closed. The actor playing the hero who has just been killed gets up and goes backstage. What to do here? Considering that the performances were performed in daylight, there was no artificial lighting. By the way, there were no intermissions either. Most of the audience stood. (Imagine how much you had to love the theater in order to stand under the open London sky for two and a half, three hours without an intermission.)

So, on stage someone is killed or someone dies. For example, in Shakespeare's chronicle Henry IV, King Henry IV dies. He pronounces a long and very deep farewell monologue addressed to his son. And suddenly he asks a strange question: “What is the name of the next room?” I don't think this is the main question a dying person asks. They answer him: “Jerusalima, sir.” He says: “Take me to the next room, because they predicted that I would die in Jerusalem.”

There are many similar examples. For example, why would Hamlet carry away the dead Polonius? And then, to free the stage from the dead man, since the curtain cannot be closed. One can make a lot of assumptions about why Fortinbras is needed in the finale of Hamlet. What is the philosophical, psychological, historical meaning of this mysterious character? One thing is absolutely clear: Fortinbras is needed to carry away the corpses, of which there are many on stage in the finale. Naturally, the meaning of its existence is not only this, but this is one of its purely theatrical functions.

Of course, Shakespeare is not a series of theatrical stunts. His very view of theater is quite deep and philosophical. One of the leitmotifs of Shakespeare's work is the idea that the entire Universe is structured like a theater. Theater is a model of the world. This is the toy that the Lord invented for himself so that he would not be bored in this vast space, in this endless loneliness. Theater is the world. History is theater. Life is a theater. Life is theatrical. People are actors on the stage of the world theater. This is one of the main motives of Shakespeare's work, which takes us from the realm of purely theatrical and technical devices into the realm of world understanding.

Over the heads of the actors in the Globe Theater there is a canopy called “heaven”. Under your feet is a hatch called “hell, the underworld.” The actor plays between heaven and hell. This is a wonderful model, a wonderful portrait of a Renaissance man, asserting his personality in the empty space of existence, filling this void between heaven and earth with meanings, poetic images, objects that are not on the stage, but which are in the word. Therefore, when we talk about Shakespeare as a man of the theater, we must keep in mind that his theater is a model of the Universe. 

Decoding

It was in 1607, I think in September. Two English trading ships sailed from London to India around Africa along the route opened by Vasco da Gama. Since the journey was long, we decided to make a stop near Sierra Leone to rest and replenish supplies. One of the ships was called the Red Dragon, its captain was William Keeling. He wrote in the ship's log that he ordered the sailors to perform some play right on deck. This record was discovered at the end of the 19th century - before it had never occurred to anyone to look for something Shakespearean in the archives of the Admiralty.

What play is chosen for an illiterate sailor? First, it must be extremely effective. Secondly, the more they kill in the play, the better. Thirdly, there must be love there. Fourthly, songs. Fifthly, for jesters to joke and joke without interruption. Surely this is exactly what the absolutely illiterate sailor audience expected from the performance.

Keeling chose a play for the sailors to play for the sailors. It was called “Hamlet” and the sailors really liked it - then they played it again, sailing along the Indian Ocean. Unlike us, they did not see any mysteries in this play. For them it was one of the then popular revenge tragedies, one of those bloody tragedies that Shakespeare's predecessor Thomas Kyd wrote. (By the way, most likely the author of the pre-Shakespearean Hamlet.)

This genre of bloody drama boiled down to a whole set of constant features. First, this is a story about a secret murder. Secondly, a ghost must appear in it, informing who was killed and who killed. Third, the play must have theatrical performance. And so on. This is how, by the way, Kid’s play “The Spanish Tragedy,” which was very popular at that time, was structured. In the eyes of the sailors, Shakespeare's Hamlet quite naturally fit into this popular, beloved and, in essence, very simple genre.

Were these illiterate guys (who in fact were no different from the audience of Shakespeare's Globe Theater - semi-literate artisans) capable of seeing in Hamlet what later generations saw, what we see? The answer is obvious: of course not. They perceived this play without distinguishing it from other similar, so to speak, detective plays. Did Shakespeare, when writing Hamlet, count on the time when future humanity would discover all the great truths that he put into this play? The answer is also clear: no. A man who wants his plays to be preserved takes care of their publication. Try to argue with this. Shakespeare not only did not care about the publication of his plays, he often prevented it. At that time, dramaturgy was considered a purely theatrical matter - and the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries were published for various, often random reasons.

For example, such a story happened with Hamlet. In 1603, the first edition of Hamlet was published, the so-called pirated one, with an abbreviated, distorted, distorted text, not very similar to the one we know. The text was stolen and published against the will of the troupe and the author. Although the author's will meant little back then. The play was entirely owned by the troupe. If theaters suddenly closed in London (for example, due to the plague), then the troupe, in order to preserve the text, was forced to take the play to the publisher and sell it for a pittance.

“Hamlet” was a very popular play among sailors and artisans, and among humanist intellectuals. Everyone likes Hamlet, as Shakespeare’s contemporary wrote.

And now, in hindsight, in the 20th century they began to find out which bastard sold Shakespeare’s text? Because exactly a year after the pirated edition was published, the Shakespeare troupe published the original text. The fact is that the troupe itself was very careful that the play not be stolen. And the publishers wanted to acquire the text of the play in any way if it was successful. Sometimes they sent stenographers, and they took notes by ear, although the conditions were very bad - the performance was performed in daylight, and there was nowhere to hide. The actors, having discovered a person who was writing down the text at a performance, could beat him half to death.

And sometimes publishers bribed an actor to reproduce the text from memory. As a keepsake - because not a single actor received the text of the entire play, only lists of their roles.

And now, more than three centuries after the play was written, historians decided to expose the swindler. They started from a very simple assumption. This actor, naturally, knew best the text of his role and the text of those scenes in which his character was occupied. Researchers compared two texts of the play, pirated and authentic. It turned out that the texts of only three small roles were absolutely identical. The fact is that Shakespeare's troupe, like other troupes of that time, consisted of shareholders - actors who served on shares and received salaries depending on the theater's income. And for small roles, in crowd scenes, they hired outside actors. It is quite obvious that the pirate (that is the term of the time) who sold the text played these three small roles in three different scenes - and therefore they were conveyed with complete authenticity. One of them is the guard Marcellus from the first act, the one who says the famous words “Something is rotten in the Danish state.” It is quite clear that the most difficult thing for the pirate was philosophical monologues. Try to remember “To be or not to be.” Therefore, in this edition, Hamlet's monologues were reproduced in the most pitiful way. The pirate added some things on his own. Remember, Hamlet lists the misfortunes that befall people’s heads and asks who would endure “the oppression of the strong... the slowness of judges”? To this list of misfortunes the pirate added “the suffering of orphans and severe hunger.” It is clear that this came out of his soul.

After this incident, the theft did not occur again. Perhaps the Shakespeare troupe themselves grabbed the hand of this unfortunate swindler - and one can only imagine what they did to him.

Why did I remember this story? This is one of a thousand examples of how the fate of Shakespeare's texts is connected with the fate of the theater of Shakespeare's era, with the life of its troupe and its audience, for whom these great plays were written.

It's easy to laugh at the illiteracy of the public, at what dark and uncouth guys they were. But at the same time it was an ideal audience. It was a divinely beautiful audience, ready to believe everything that happened on stage. This was an audience brought up in church on sermons, still remembering the experience of medieval mystery performances. It was an audience in which there was a divine simplicity. In this audience, for which Shakespeare wrote and on which he directly depended, there was a fantastic, enviable quality of absolute faith that has essentially disappeared in modern theater. Faith, without which there is no great theater. 

Decoding

Shakespeare's comedies do not correspond to the idea of ​​the comedy genre in which we were brought up. We are accustomed to the fact that laughter is ridicule. We are accustomed to the fact that comedy and satire are about the same thing. Shakespearean comedies are works of mystery, magic and strange (“I was born under a dancing star,” says the heroine of the comedy “Much Ado About Nothing” to Beatrice). This is a unique example of Renaissance comedy, lying aside from the traditional path of development of world comedy, which developed as satirical, with destructive, angry, sarcastic laughter (of the Moliere type).

Shakespeare laughs differently. This is the laughter of delight at the world. This is poetic laughter, in which an essentially Renaissance boiling of vital forces spills out. This laughter becomes a declaration of love for the world, for the grass, for the forest, for the sky, for people.

Traditional comedies, of the Molière type, are comedies that ridicule. Shakespearean comedies are laugh-out-loud comedies. Heroes of the Moliere-Gogol type are ridiculed, satirical characters, most often old people. Shakespeare's heroes are young lovers traveling around the world in search of happiness, people discovering the world for themselves. They fall in love for the first time, they are jealous, they are indignant - everything is for the first time. And the point is not only that Shakespeare’s heroes themselves are young, but also that they carry within themselves the spirit of a young era, an era that is discovering the world. Hence the feeling of seductive originality, which constitutes the fantastic charm of Shakespeare's plays. For a modern person - ironic, sarcastic, not too inclined to believe anything - Shakespeare's comedies sometimes turn out to be a mystery, a secret sealed with seven seals.

By the way, this is why one can name dozens of great productions of tragedies in the theater of the 20th century - and literally count the great productions of comedies. It’s easy to imagine a director who spends his entire life trying to stage Hamlet. But I would like to see a director who spends his whole life preparing to stage The Taming of the Shrew. This is unlikely. The 20th and 21st centuries are more open to tragedy. Maybe because Shakespeare's comedies are full of a feeling of happiness, full of radiant, dizzying joy - the joy of existence itself, the joy of the fact that a person was born, the joy of discovering the world, and man, and love.

Shakespeare's comedies are very different. There is a huge distance between The Taming of the Shrew or The Comedy of Errors on the one hand and A Midsummer Night's Dream or Twelfth Night on the other. And yet there is the concept of Shakespearean comedy as a special integral genre. One of the hallmarks of this genre is that many of the comedies tell the same story - the story of how young lovers from a dramatic, hostile world, a world of harsh laws, a persecuting, love-destroying world, flee into the forest. And the forest saves and shelters them. All their torments and dramas that made them suffer dissipate in the forest. The forest as an image of nature is one of the central images of Renaissance art. He, like music, returns people to their own nature. (For a Renaissance man, music is a symbol of existence, an image of the structure of the Universe. This is what the people of the Renaissance borrowed from the ancient Pythagoreans: music as the law of the existence of the Universe. Shakespeare’s comedies are filled with such music.)

In the play As You Like It, Rosalind and her lover Orlando flee from the castle of the tyrant Frederick into the forest and there they find harmony, peace and happiness. Rosalind is one of the most brilliant, perfect and prone to play and transformation, super-artistic heroes of Shakespeare. In general, his heroes - artists, actors - often find real happiness in the game.

But unlike how it happens in pastoral  Pastoral- a genre in art that poetizes peaceful and simple rural life, where the heroes also flee into nature from the worries of everyday life, the heroes of Shakespeare's comedies return to the world every time - but to a world already saved and renewed by the forest. This confrontation can be called the main plot of Shakespeare's comedies - the confrontation between the harsh, traditional, stupid, conservative, cruel world and the world of freedom that people find in the forest.

This is a fairy forest. In the comedy As You Like It, it has palm trees and lions, although the action takes place somewhere between France and Belgium. In the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, elves and magical creatures live in the forest. This is the world of a distant kingdom, a dream come true - on the one hand. On the other hand, this is an English forest. The same Sherwood Forest from the ballads about Robin Hood (as in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” where the robbers living between Milan and Verona swear by the baldness of the old monk from Robin Hood’s daring band). Or the same Forest of Arden in the play “As You Like It” - this is also the forest near Stratford, where Shakespeare spent his childhood and where, according to popular beliefs, elves lived - disembodied flying creatures that filled the air of this forest. This is a magical country, but at the same time it is Elizabethan England. The comedy As You Like It talks about people who live in this forest as exiles, just like in the days of Robin Hood. The image of Shakespeare's comedies is also an image of old England. Old Robin Hood England.

In the chronicle of Henry V, a woman standing near the deathbed of Falstaff, Shakespeare's greatest comic hero, says that before his death he muttered about some green fields. These are the green fields of old England, the fields of old Robin Hood England. England, which is leaving forever, to which Shakespeare's plays say goodbye. They say goodbye, feeling nostalgic for this simple-minded and beautiful world, which is captured with such depth, charm and simplicity in Shakespeare’s comedies.

I borrow the end of the lecture from an American scientist. Giving a lecture on Shakespeare's comedy to his students, he ended it like this: “How to define the world of Shakespeare's comedies? Perhaps the best way to define the world of Shakespeare's comedies is this. It's a world where there are students but no lectures." 

Decoding

Shakespeare's Chronicles are historical dramas from England's past, mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries. It is interesting to understand why in Shakespearean England, not only among humanists, scientists, historians, but also among the common people, such a huge interest in national history arose. In my opinion, the answer is obvious. When the Invincible Spanish Armada - a huge fleet with tens of thousands of soldiers on board - set out to conquer England in 1588, the fate of Britain seemed to hang in the balance. Who could have imagined that a storm would disperse the Spanish ships, and that the English naval commanders would be able to destroy this huge fleet. There was a moment when it seemed that the British were facing a national catastrophe. And this threat, this premonition of disaster united the country, united all classes. The British felt like never before that they were a nation. And as happens in moments of national danger, art, and simply the consciousness of people, turned to the past - so that the English nation could recognize the origins of its historical destiny there and find hope for victory there. On the wave of national unification, this specific dramatic genre of historical chronicles arose.

It can be said that in Shakespeare's chronicles the view of the Renaissance humanists on history was expressed with the utmost completeness. It was based on the idea that the essence of history is the divine essence, that behind the historical process there is a superwill, divine will, absolute justice. Those who violate the laws of history, those who violate moral laws, are doomed to death. But the essential thing is that the most theatrical, humanly interesting motifs and images of Shakespeare’s chronicles are precisely in the stories about those who break all sorts of laws. The most striking example is Richard III. Beast, monster, villain, voluptuous, murderer, slanderer, rapist. But when at the very beginning of the play he appears on the stage, he turns to us with a confession. What a strange idea to start a play with a confession. How strange it is to structure a play in such a way that in the very first scene the hero reveals his terrible soul. What a terrible violation of all the laws of dramatic structure! How to develop events further? But Shakespeare is a genius, and he is above the law. And "Richard III" is wonderful proof.

And the point is not that the play begins with a confession, but that we unexpectedly fall under the imperious charm, the special terrible attractiveness of this freak, villain, scoundrel, murderer, voluptuous. His sins can be listed endlessly. But this is the figure of a genius, black, but a genius, a man born to command. Next to him, other sinful or virtuous politicians seem like small fry. In fact, in order to gain power over them, he even spends too much energy. It is easy to win over these silent sheep, silent cowards.

Richard III is first and foremost a great actor. He enjoys the very process of hypocritical play, changing masks. Here all moral rules, all traditional ideas about good and evil collapse. They crumble before the chosenness of this terrible, monstrous, but truly great figure.

With what ease this hunchback, freak, lame man defeats Lady Anna. This is the most famous scene in the play, although it only lasts about ten minutes. At first Lady Anne hates him, spits in his face, curses him because he is the murderer of her husband and her husband's father, Henry VI. And at the end of the scene she belongs to him - such is superwill, a terrible superpower that destroys all ideas about good and evil. And we fall under his spell. We are waiting for this genius of evil to finally appear on stage. Actors of all times adored this role. And Burbage, who was the first performer, and Garrick in the 18th century, and Edmund Kean in the 19th century, and at the end of the 19th century Henry Irving, and Laurence Olivier. And if we talk about our theater, then the play by Robert Sturua remains a great example  Robert Sturua(b. 1938) - theater director, actor, teacher.. Ramaz Chkhikvadze brilliantly played this half-man, half-monster.

This beast was born to command, but his death is inevitable. Because he rebelled against history, against what Shakespeare combines into the central leitmotif of the chronicles. He, a rebel, rebelled against time, against God. It is no coincidence that when Keane played this role, the dying Richard's last look was at the sky. And it was the look of an unreconciled, unforgiving look of the enemy. "Richard III" is one example of how Shakespeare's genius overcomes ethical laws. And we find ourselves at the mercy of this black genius. This monster, villain, power-hungry defeats not only Lady Anna, he defeats us. (Especially if Richard is played by a great actor. For example, Laurence Olivier. This was his best role, which he played first in the theater and then in the film he directed.)

Shakespeare's Chronicles have long been considered something of a de-ideologized history treatise. Except for Richard III, which was always performed and always loved by the actors. All these endless "Henry VI", part one, part two, part three, "Henry IV", part one, part two, all these "King Johns" were more interesting for historians, but not for the theater.

This was the case until, in the 1960s, in Stratford, Peter Hall, who directed the Royal Shakespeare Theater, staged a series of Shakespearean chronicles called The Wars of the Roses.  War of the Scarlet and White Roses, or War of the Roses, (1455-1485) - a series of armed dynastic conflicts between factions of the English nobility fighting for power.. He directed them in such a way that the connection between the historical drama of Shakespeare and Brecht, the historical drama of Shakespeare and the docudrama of the mid-20th century became obvious. The connection between Shakespeare's chronicles and Antonin Artaud's "theater of cruelty"  Antonin Artaud(1896-1948) - French writer, playwright, actor and theorist, innovator of theatrical language. The basis of Artaud's system is the denial of theater in the usual understanding of this phenomenon, a theater that satisfies the traditional needs of the public. The ultimate goal is to discover the true meaning of human existence through the destruction of random forms. The term “cruelty” in Artaud’s system has a meaning that is fundamentally different from its everyday meaning. If, in the ordinary understanding, cruelty is associated with the manifestation of individualism, then according to Artaud, cruelty is the conscious submission of necessity, aimed at the destruction of individuality.. Peter Hall abandoned traditional patriotic sentiment, any attempt to glorify the greatness of the British Empire. He staged a play about the monstrous, ugly, inhuman face of war, following in the footsteps of Bertolt Brecht and learning from his view of history.

Since then, since 1963, when Peter Hall staged his historical cycle in Stratford, the theatrical fate of Shakespeare's chronicles has changed. They entered the world theater with such a breadth that was completely impossible before. And to this day, Shakespeare’s chronicles are preserved in the repertoire of modern theater, primarily English and our own.

I remember the wonderful play “Henry IV”, staged in the late 1960s by Georgy Tovstonogov at the Bolshoi Drama Theater. And what a brilliant fate “Richard III” has on the Russian stage. The point is not that, when staging Richard III, we remembered our history, the figure of our own monster. It was obvious. But Shakespeare did not write plays with specific historical figures in mind. Richard III is not a play about Stalin. Richard III is a play about tyranny. And not so much about her, but about the temptation that she carries. About the thirst for slavery, on which all tyranny is built.

So, Shakespeare's chronicles are not treatises on history, they are living plays, plays about our own historical destiny. 

Decoding

Several years ago I was in Verona and walked through those places that, as Veronese residents say, are connected with the story of Romeo and Juliet. Here is an old, heavy, moss-covered balcony, on which Juliet stood, and under which Romeo stood. Here is the temple in which Father Lorenzo married young lovers. And here is Juliet's crypt. It is located outside the walls of the old city, in modern Verona Cheryomushki. There, among absolutely Khrushchev-era five-story buildings, stands a charming little ancient monastery. In its basement is what is called Juliet's crypt. No one knows for sure if it is him, but it is believed that he is.

This is an open tomb. I went into the basement, looked, fulfilled my duty to Shakespeare and was about to leave. But at the last moment I noticed a pile of pieces of paper lying on a stone ledge above the tomb. I looked at one and realized that these were letters that modern girls write to Juliet. And although it is indecent to read other people’s letters, I still read one. Terribly naive, written in English. Either an American wrote it, or an Italian girl who decided that Juliet should be written in English, since it is a Shakespeare play. The content was something like this: “Dear Juliet, I just learned about your story and cried so much. What did these vile adults do to you?”

I thought that modern humanity and modern theater are doing only this, that they are writing letters to the great works of the past. And they get an answer. In essence, the entire fate of modern theater, staging classics in general and Shakespeare in particular, is the history of this correspondence. Sometimes the answer comes, sometimes not. It all depends on what questions we ask of the past. Modern theater does not stage Shakespeare in order to find out how people lived in the 16th century. And not in order to try to penetrate from our Russian world into the world of British culture. This is important, but secondary. We turn to the classics, we turn to Shakespeare, mainly to understand ourselves.

The fate of Romeo and Juliet confirms this. Shakespeare did not invent the plot of this play. He seemed to have no inclination to invent stories at all. Only two of Shakespeare's plays exist without known sources: A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. And this is perhaps because we simply do not know on what sources they were based.

The plot of Romeo and Juliet has been known for a very, very long time. Antiquity had its own Romeo and Juliet - Pyramus and Thisbe, whose story was described by Ovid. The story of Romeo is also mentioned by Dante - Montague and Cappelletti, as he says in The Divine Comedy. Since the late Middle Ages, Italian cities have debated where the story of Romeo and Juliet took place. In the end, Verona wins. Then Lope de Vega writes a play about Romeo and Juliet. Then the Italian novelists, one after another, tell the story.

In England, the plot of Romeo and Juliet was also known before Shakespeare. One English poet, Arthur Brooke, wrote a poem about the love of Romeus and Juliet. That is, Shakespeare's play is preceded by a huge history. He builds his building on a ready-made foundation. And different interpretations of this play are possible because its very basis contains different possibilities for understanding and interpreting this story.

Arthur Brooke's secret love story between Romeus and Juliet lasts nine months. In Shakespeare, the action of the tragedy fits into five days. It is important for Shakespeare to begin the play on Sunday afternoon and finish it exactly five days later, on Friday night. It is important to him that the proposed wedding of Paris and Juliet should take place on Thursday. “No, on Wednesday,” says Father Capulet. A strange thing: how are the days of the week and the great tragedy connected with her philosophical ideas? It is important for Shakespeare that these philosophical ideas are connected to very specific, everyday circumstances. Over these five days, the greatest love story in world literature unfolds before us.

See how Romeo and Juliet enter this story and how they leave it. Look what happens to them in just a few days. Look at this girl who was just playing with dolls. And see how the tragic circumstances of fate transform her into a strong, deep human being. Look at this boy, sentimental teenager Romeo. How he changes towards the end.

In one of the last scenes of the play, there is a moment when Romeo comes to Juliet's crypt and Paris meets him there. Paris decides that Romeo has come to desecrate Juliet's ashes and blocks his way. Romeo tells him: “Go away, dear youth.” The tone in which Romeo addresses Paris, who is probably older than him, is the tone of a wise and world-weary man, a man who has lived, a man on the verge of death. This is a story about the transformation of a person by love and the tragedy that is associated with this love.

Tragedy, as we know, is the realm of the inevitable, this is the world of the inevitable. In a tragedy they die because they must, because death is prescribed for a person who enters into a tragic conflict. However, the death of Romeo and Juliet is accidental. If it weren't for this stupid plague epidemic, Lorenzo's father's envoy would have gotten to Romeo and explained that Juliet is not dead at all, that all this is Lorenzo's noble trickery. Strange story.

Sometimes this is explained by the fact that Romeo and Juliet is an early play, that it is not yet a complete tragedy, that there is still a long way to go before Hamlet. Perhaps this is so. But something else is possible. How to understand the plague in Shakespearean tragedy? What if the plague is not just an epidemic, but an image of a tragic creature of existence?

Behind this story lies a different subtext, allowing for the possibility of a different interpretation. Franco Zeffirelli before making the famous film  "Romeo and Juliet", 1968., staged a play in an Italian theater. They brought it to Moscow, and I remember how it began. It began with a noisy, colorful, neo-realistic scene of a market crowd, having fun, running, trading, shouting. Italy, in a word. And suddenly we saw a man in black appear at the back of the stage and begin to move through this crowd towards us. At some point, the crowd freezes, and a man with a scroll in his hands comes to the forefront and reads the text of the prologue. This black man is the image of fate and the inevitability of suffering and death of lovers.

Which of these two interpretations is correct? And is it possible to talk about correct and incorrect interpretation? The whole point is that Shakespearean drama contains the possibilities of a variety of, sometimes almost mutually exclusive, points of view. This is the quality of great art. This is clearly proven by both the literary and mainly theatrical fate of Romeo and Juliet.

Suffice it to recall the tragic performance of Anatoly Efros, one of the most profound views on this play. In this production, Romeo and Juliet were not cooing doves - they were strong, mature, deep people who knew what awaited them if they allowed themselves to confront the world of boorish power reigning in theatrical Verona. They walked fearlessly towards death. They have already read Hamlet. They knew how it ended. They were united not only by feeling, they were united by the desire to confront this world and the inevitability of death. It was a gloomy performance that did not leave much hope, and it was a performance that grew out of the very essence of Shakespeare's text.

Perhaps Shakespeare himself would have written Romeo and Juliet this way if he had written this play not at the time of his youth, but at the time of the tragic Hamlet.

Decoding

“Hamlet” is a special play for Russia. Hamlet in the tragedy says that the theater is a mirror in which centuries, classes and generations are reflected, and the purpose of the theater is to hold the mirror up to humanity. But Hamlet itself is a mirror. Someone said that this is a mirror placed on the highway. And people, generations, nations, classes walk past him. And everyone sees themselves. This is especially true in relation to Russian history. Hamlet is the mirror in which Russia has always strived to see its face, strives to understand itself through Hamlet.

When Mochalov  Pavel Stepanovich Mochalov(1800-1848) - actor of the Romantic era, served in the Moscow Maly Theater. played Hamlet in 1837, Belinsky wrote his famous words that Hamlet is “you, this is me, this is each of us.” This phrase is not accidental for the Russian view of the play. Almost 80 years later, Blok would write: “I am Hamlet. The blood runs cold..." (1914). The phrase “I am Hamlet” underlies not only the stage history of this play in the Russian theater, this formula is essential and valid for every period of Russian history. Anyone who decides to explore the history of Russian spiritual culture, the Russian intelligentsia, must find out how this play was interpreted at different moments in history, how Hamlet was understood in its tragic ups and terrible downs.

When Stanislavski was rehearsing Hamlet in 1909, preparing the actors for the arrival of Gordon Craig  Edward Gordon Craig(1872-1966) - English actor, theater and opera director of the modernist era., who staged the play at the Moscow Art Theater, he said that Hamlet is a hypostasis of Christ. That Hamlet’s mission not only in the play, but in the world is a mission that can be compared with the being of the Son of God. This is not at all a random association for the Russian consciousness. Remember Boris Pasternak’s poem from Doctor Zhivago, when Hamlet puts the words of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane into his mouth:

“If only possible, Abba Father,
Carry this cup past.
I love your stubborn plan
And I agree to play this role.
But now there is another drama,
And this time fire me.
But the order of actions has been thought out,
And the end of the road is inevitable.
I am alone, everything is drowning in pharisaism.
Living life is not a field to cross.”

It is very interesting to look at at what moments in Russian history Hamlet comes to the fore. At what moments which Shakespearean play turns out to be the most significant, the most important. There were times when Hamlet found itself on the periphery, when other plays of Shakespeare became the first number. It is interesting to see at what moments in Russian history Hamlet turns out to be an instrument of Russian confession. This was the case during the Silver Age. This was the case in the post-revolutionary years, and above all in Hamlet, played by perhaps the most brilliant actor of the 20th century - Mikhail Chekhov. A great and profound actor, a mystic, for whom the main meaning of Hamlet was communication with the ghost, the fulfillment of his will.

By the way, in Pasternak’s article on translations of Shakespeare’s tragedies there is a phrase that Hamlet goes “to do the will of the one who sent him.” Mikhail Chekhov's Hamlet went to fulfill the will of the ghost who sent him - who did not appear on stage, but who was symbolized by a huge vertical ray descending from the sky. Hamlet entered this fiery pillar, this luminous space, and exposed himself to it, absorbing this heavenly glow not only into his consciousness, but also into every vein of his body. Mikhail Chekhov played a man crushed by the heavy tread of history. It was a cry of pain from a person through whom the mechanism of Russian revolutionary and post-revolutionary reality passed. Chekhov played Hamlet in 1924, and emigrated in 1928. Chekhov's departure was absolutely inevitable - he had nothing to do in the country of the victorious revolution.

His further fate was dramatic. He died in 1955, and before that he lived in the West: in the Baltic states, in France, then in America. He acted, was a director, and a teacher. But he did nothing commensurate with the role he played in Russia. And this was his tragedy. This was the tragedy of his Hamlet.

“Hamlet” has not been performed on the Moscow stage for 30 years. (Except for the special case of Akimov’s “Hamlet” at the Vakhtangov Theater  "Hamlet" staged by Nikolai Akimov in 1932 at the Theater. Vakhtangov.. It was a semi-parody, a reprisal of the traditional Russian view that deifies Hamlet.) One of the reasons why “Hamlet” was excommunicated from the Moscow stage was that Stalin could not stand this play. This is understandable, because the Russian intelligentsia has always seen the Hamlet element in themselves.

There was a case when Nemirovich-Danchenko, who received special permission, rehearsed “Hamlet” at the Art Theater (the play was never released). And the actor Boris Livanov, at one of the Kremlin receptions, approached Stalin and said: “Comrade Stalin, we are now rehearsing Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. What advice would you give us? How should we approach staging this play?” There are several versions of Stalin’s answer, but the most reliable is this. Stalin said with indescribable contempt: “Well, he’s weak.” "No no! - said Livanov. “We’re playing him strong!”

Therefore, when Stalin died, in 1953 several Russian theaters immediately turned to this semi-unauthorized play. At the same time, in 1954, the premieres took place at the Mayakovsky Theater, where the play was staged by Okhlopkov  Nikolai Pavlovich Okhlopkov(1900-1967) - theater and film actor, director, teacher. Disciple and continuer of traditions Vs. Meyerhold. Since 1943 he headed the Theater. Mayakovsky., and in Leningrad at the Pushkin Theater (Alexandrinsky), where it was staged by Kozintsev  Grigory Mikhailovich Kozintsev(1905-1973) - film and theater director, screenwriter, teacher. For the film “Hamlet” (1964) he received the Lenin Prize. even before his film.

The history of Hamlet in the post-war Russian theater is a very large topic, but I want to talk about one thing. About that “Hamlet”, which was the “Hamlet” of my generation. It was “Hamlet” by Vysotsky, Borovsky, Lyubimov  “Hamlet” was staged at the Taganka Theater in 1971. The director of the play was Yuri Lyubimov, the artist and set designer was David Borovsky, the role of Hamlet was played by Vladimir Vysotsky.. It was not a terrible time, 1971, it cannot be compared with the end of the 30s. But it was a shameful, disgraceful time. General indifference, silence, the few dissidents who dared to raise their voices ended up in prison, tanks in Czechoslovakia, and so on.

In such a shameful political and spiritual atmosphere this performance with Vysotsky appeared, and it contained a real Russian rebellion, a real explosion. It was Hamlet, very simple, very Russian and very angry. It was Hamlet who allowed himself to rebel. It was Hamlet the rebel. He defied the sheer force of tragedy that confronted him. He was opposed not only by the political system, but by Soviet tyranny - Vysotsky was not very interested in all this. He was confronted by forces that were impossible to overcome. The forces that were symbolized in the famous image of the curtain  “With the help of aeronautical engineers, a very complex structure was installed above the stage, thanks to which the curtain could move in different directions, changing the scenery, revealing some characters, closing others, sweeping others off the stage... The idea of ​​a moving curtain allowed Lyubimov to find the key to the entire performance . Wherever Hamlet was, the curtain began to move and stopped according to a strict rule: Vysotsky always remained apart, separate from others” (from the article “Hamlet from Taganka. On the twentieth anniversary of the performance” in the newspaper “Young Communard”, 1991)., created by the brilliant David Borovsky. It was a huge eyeless monster, which became either a wall of earth, or an image of death, or a huge web that entangled people. It was a moving monster that you couldn’t hide from, couldn’t run away from. It was a giant broom sweeping people to death.

Two images of death in this performance existed simultaneously - the curtain as a symbol of the transpersonal inevitable forces of tragedy and the grave on the edge of the stage from real, living earth. I said "alive", but I was wrong. It was a dead land, not one in which anything grows. This was the land in which they bury.

And between these images of death Vysotsky existed. Hamlet, the very hoarseness of whose voice seemed to come from the fact that someone was holding his throat with a tenacious hand. This Hamlet tried to weigh the pros and cons, and this inevitably led him into a sterile mental dead end, because from the point of view of common sense, the uprising is senseless and doomed to defeat. But in this Hamlet there was holy hatred, if hatred can be holy. In this Hamlet there was the rightness of impatience. And this man, this warrior, this intellectual and poet, headlong, casting aside all doubts, rushed into the fight, into the rebellion, into the uprising and died, like soldiers die, quietly and not ostentatiously. There was no need for Fortinbras here, there was no ceremonial removal of Hamlet’s body. Hamlet, at the back of the stage, leaning his back against the wall, quietly slid to the ground - that’s all death.

To the frozen hall in which people of my generation were sitting, this performance and this actor gave hope. Hope for the possibility of resistance. This was the image of Hamlet, which became part of the soul of my generation, which, by the way, was directly related to Pasternak’s image of Hamlet. It was no coincidence that the performance began with Vysotsky’s song based on these same verses by Pasternak from Doctor Zhivago. It is interesting that Vysotsky from this poem, which he performed almost in its entirety, threw out one stanza: “I love your stubborn plan and agree to play this role...”. This Hamlet did not like the world plan. He resisted any higher purpose underlying the world. He did not agree to play this role. This Hamlet was all rebellion, rebellion, resistance. It was a rush to will, to will-will, to the Russian understanding of freedom, to what Fedya Protasov spoke about in Tolstoy  Fedor Protasov- the central character of Leo Tolstoy's play "The Living Corpse". listening to gypsy singing. This performance played a huge role in our lives. This image remained with us for the rest of our lives.

There are times for Hamlet, and times not for Hamlet. There is nothing shameful in non-Hamlet times. After all, there are other plays by Shakespeare. Hamlet's times are special, and it seems to me (maybe I'm wrong) that our time is not Hamlet's, we are not drawn to this play. Although, if a young director suddenly comes out and, by staging this play, proves that we are worthy of Hamlet, I will be the first to rejoice. 

Decoding

If you look at the latest works of artists from different times and different types of art, you can find something that unites them. There is something in common between Sophocles's last tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus, the last works of Beethoven, the last biblical tragedies of Racine, the late Tolstoy or the late Dostoevsky and the last plays of Shakespeare.

Perhaps an artist who has reached the limit, facing death with terrible clarity as the near future, comes up with the idea of ​​leaving the world, leaving people with hope, something worth living for, no matter how tragically hopeless life may be. Perhaps Shakespeare's last works are an impulse to break out of the limits of catastrophic hopelessness. After Hamlet, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, this darkest, most hopeless of Shakespeare's tragedies, an attempt to break into the world of hope, into the world of hope, in order to preserve it for people. After all, Shakespeare’s last plays “Cymbeline”, “Pericles”, “The Winter’s Tale” and, above all, “The Tempest” are so different from everything he has done so far. To the great tragedies that speak of the tragic essence of existence.

“The Tempest” is a play that is called Shakespeare’s testament, the last chord of his work. This is probably the most musical of Shakespeare's plays and the most harmonious. This is a play that could only be created by a person who has gone through the temptation of tragedy, through the temptation of hopelessness. This is the hope that arises on the other side of despair. This, by the way, is a phrase from a late novel by Thomas Mann. Hope, which knows about hopelessness - and still tries to overcome it. “The Tempest” is a fairy tale, a philosophical fairy tale. The wizard Prospero operates in it, witchcraft books give him magical power over the island, he is surrounded by fantastic characters: the spirit of light and air Ariel, the spirit of the earth Caliban, Prospero’s lovely daughter Miranda, and so on.

But this is not just a fairy tale and not even just a philosophical fairy tale - this is a play about an attempt to correct humanity, to heal a hopelessly sick world with the help of art. It is not at all by chance that Prospero unleashes music on this crowd of freaks and villains who end up on the island as a great healing force. But music is unlikely to heal them. It is unlikely that art can save the world, just as beauty is unlikely to save the world. What Prospero comes to in the finale of this strange, very difficult play for the theater is the idea that underlies the entirety of late Shakespeare. This is the idea of ​​salvation through mercy. Only forgiveness can, if not change, then at least not aggravate the evil that reigns in the world. This is what, in simple terms, the meaning of “The Tempest” comes down to. Prospero forgives his enemies who almost destroyed him. He forgives, although he is not at all sure that they have changed, that they have been healed. But forgiveness is the last thing a person has before leaving the world.

Yes, of course, in the finale Prospero returns to his Milanese throne with his beloved daughter Miranda and her beloved Ferdinand. But at the end of the play he says such strange words that for some reason they always remove them from Russian translations. In the original, Prospero says that he will return so that every third of his thoughts will be a grave. The ending of this play is not at all as bright as is sometimes believed. And yet this is a play about farewell and forgiveness. This is a farewell and forgiving play, like all of Shakespeare's last plays.

It is very difficult for modern theater and is rarely produced by modern directors. Although at the end of the 20th century, almost all the great directors of European theater turn to this play - it is staged by Strehler, Brook, in Moscow it is staged by Robert Sturua at the Et Cetera Theater with Alexander Kalyagin in the role of Prospero. It is no coincidence that Peter Greenaway staged this play in his wonderful film “The Books of Prospero”. For the role of Prospero, Greenaway invites not just anyone, but the greatest English actor, John Gielgud.  Sir Arthur John Gielgud(1904-2000) - English actor, theater director, one of the largest performers of Shakespearean roles in the history of the theater. Winner of all major performing awards: Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, Tony, BAFTA and Golden Globe.. He can no longer act, he is too old and sick to play a role the way he played his great roles in the old days. And in Greenaway's film, Gielgud does not play, he is present. For Greenaway, this actor is important as an image and symbol of the great culture of the past, nothing more. Gielgud’s Prospero is both Shakespeare’s Prospero, and Shakespeare himself, who writes “The Tempest,” and the Lord God, the ruler of this beautiful Universe, permeated with art. Permeated, but oversaturated.

In order to appreciate the meaning of what Greenaway did, one must understand that almost every frame of this film should evoke an association with some specific work of Renaissance or post-Renaissance, Baroque art of the 16th-17th centuries. Almost every frame refers us to the great works of Venetian painters of the 16th century, or the architecture of Michelangelo. This is a world oversaturated with art. This is a culture burdened with itself and yearning for the ending, yearning for the end as its outcome.

At the end of the film, Prospero burns and drowns his magic books. What kind of books are these? These are the main books of mankind, including, by the way, “The First Folio” - the first collection of Shakespeare’s works, published after his death, in 1623. We see the folio slowly sink to the bottom. And a strange thing happens: the catastrophe that befalls the Universe at the end of Greenaway's film gives a feeling of relief, deliverance and purification. This, it seems to me, is the meaning of this film, which penetrates deeply and deeply into the semantic layers of Shakespeare's play.

After The Tempest, Shakespeare writes almost nothing. Writes only with Fletcher  John Fletcher(1579-1625) - English playwright who defined the term "tragicomedy". his not the best, last chronicle “Henry VIII”. By the way, during her performance the Globe caught fire - Shakespeare’s favorite brainchild burned to the ground in half an hour. (No one was hurt, only one spectator's trousers caught fire, but someone poured a pint of ale on them and it was extinguished.) I think this was a key farewell event for Shakespeare. For the last four years he has been living in Stratford and writing nothing.

Why is he silent? This is one of the main mysteries of his life. One of the main secrets of his art. Maybe he is silent because everything that could be said, that he had to say, has been said. Or maybe he is silent because no Hamlet could change the world one iota, change people, make the world a better place. Despair and the feeling that art is meaningless and fruitless very often befalls great artists on the verge of death. Why he is silent, we do not know. What we do know is that for the last four years Shakespeare has been living the life of a private citizen in Stratford, writing his will a few months before his death and dying, apparently of a heart attack. When Lope de Vega died in Spain, the whole country followed his coffin - it was a national funeral. Shakespeare's death went almost unnoticed. Several years would pass before his friend and rival Ben Jonson wrote: “He belongs not to our age alone, but to all ages.” But this was discovered only after many, many, many years. Shakespeare's real life began in the second half of the 18th century, not earlier. And it continues. 

Shakespeare leaves the theater

Shakespeare was forty-eight years old when circumstances prompted him to decide to leave the theater.

Neither he himself nor his friends left any explanations on this matter. As with some other important points in his life, we are left to guesswork here.

We can certainly say that the source of his creative thought has not dried up. This could not happen to Shakespeare, who had enormous creative energy. The last plays show no signs that his talent has become impoverished. On the contrary, as we have seen, Shakespeare's genius knew how to find new sources of inspiration.

More likely an illness. It was no coincidence that Dr. Hall appeared in Shakespeare's house. He kept records of seeing patients, but his diaries have not been completely preserved. It was the notebooks that he kept during the years when Shakespeare lived in Stratford that disappeared. (Such is our Shakespearean happiness!) However, the assumption of illness is quite plausible: Shakespeare worked so much that he could overstrain himself.

In any case, soon after 1613, Shakespeare transferred his share in the troupe's shares to someone and liquidated all property and financial affairs that he had in London. He also stopped writing for the theater.

In addition to illness, other circumstances could have affected him.

Shakespeare's biographers in the 19th century loved to paint such a picture. Shakespeare achieved success, fame and fortune. He had nothing else to worry about. All that remained was to reap the fruits of his labors, and he left for quiet Stratford to enjoy the peace. This is how the English critic Edward Dowden imagined the end of Shakespeare's life.

Georg Brandes, in his biography of Shakespeare, is partly inclined towards this: “Shakespeare has worked enough in his lifetime. His workday has come to an end." But the Danish critic also believes that Shakespeare was overcome not only by fatigue, but also by disappointment: “Now even the thought of taking up a pen did not smile at him. For whom should I create? For whom should the plays be staged? The new generation visiting the theater was completely alien to him. And in London no one paid attention to the fact that he left the city.”

The English writer Lytton Strachey spoke even more decisively on historical topics. Re-reading Shakespeare's last plays, he found in them many signs of fatigue, annoyance at the world, disgust for all the baseness that was so much around.

Even such a usually reserved and extremely objective researcher as Edmund Chambers came to the conclusion that Shakespeare’s departure from the theater was caused by deep internal reasons. If Lytton Strachey believed that Shakespeare's discontent was explained by social reasons, then Chambers sees them in the professional conditions of creativity. Shakespeare was tired of catering to the capricious tastes of the public; He was especially dissatisfied with the fact that when his plays were staged in the theater, they invariably distorted, shortened and threw out what was most dear to him as the author.

It's hard to say which side is right. Most likely, each of the circumstances played its role: fatigue, illness, dissatisfaction...

One more important circumstance should be kept in mind. Shakespeare could not have had any ambition as a writer. If he had it in his youth, when he, not without pride, published the “firstborn of his imagination” - the poems “Venus and Adonis” and “Lucretia”, then later he refused to publish poetic works. “Sonnets,” as the reader remembers, went into print against his will.

As for the plays, the theater kept them so that competing troupes could not use them and so that reading would not replace visiting the theater for educated spectators.

Since the Burbage-Shakespeare troupe became the troupe of the king himself, it apparently had the opportunity to interfere with the “pirate” publications of plays. After 1605, as we have seen, publishers were largely forced to confine themselves to reprinting old plays. Of the new ones, only Troilus and Cressida, which was not performed on stage, and King Lear, the text of which was transcribed during the performance, were published.

Retiring from the stage, Shakespeare might have thought that much of what he had done would never reach posterity. Apparently, he did not believe that the printed plays would interest anyone after they left the stage.

Everything we know about Shakespeare convinces us that he looked at his plays as part of a performance, without imagining that his tragedies and comedies could have a meaning independent of the theater. He was convinced of this by the then literary theory, which did not recognize the artistic merits of plays in which the rules of Aristotle and Horace regarding the three unities were not observed. Shakespeare performed them only twice: the first time in his youth, when he wrote his “Comedy of Errors” based on the comedy of Plautus, the second time at sunset - in “The Tempest”. It is possible that when creating The Tempest, he, among other things, wanted to finally prove to Ben Jonson that he could do this too. But Ben, as we already know, did not appreciate this feat of Shakespeare and even ridiculed The Tempest.

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Sarah Bernhardt, Vivien Leigh, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Vanessa Redgrave, Laurence Olivier, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, John Gielgud, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mel Gibson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons . The list goes on and on, because there is no actor who would not dream of playing in a Shakespeare play. And there is no director who would not dream of directing Shakespeare.

There are hundreds of Shakespeare adaptations. These are direct film adaptations, free and modernized versions, and various adaptations, parodies, films “based on”, and films that owe only their title to Shakespeare. The first "film" was released by Fono-Cinema-Theater in 1900 and lasted three minutes. Of course, it was Hamlet, and Sarah Bernhardt shone in the title role.

Soon after its inception, cinema, in search of stories, delved into literature, not ignoring the Great Bard. They say that the decisive reasons for turning to Shakespearean themes at that time were considerations of copyright - having moved into the category of “world heritage of all mankind”, Shakespeare gave plots completely free of charge, without requiring royalties, as well as considerations of censorship - how many terrible atrocities, bloody crimes and there were fascinating sensations in his dramas! And all this under the guise of classics, because Shakespeare is beyond suspicion!.. Perhaps this is so, but I would like to believe that the love of “pure art” also led those who at different times turned to Shakespeare. However, let's see...

Joe Macbeth is a gangster. He is no longer young, influential, and recently married the ambitious beauty Lily. But the work that Big Duck (Duncan) has dumped on him is beyond Joe’s strength, especially since it’s high time for him to become “guy number 1” - that’s what Lily says the chestnut seller in the nightclub guessed... (“Macbeth” in gangster genre, film "Joe Macbeth", directed by Ken Hughes, England, 1955.)

Or this: a black jazz musician is married to a white singer who, obeying the demands of her jealous husband, no longer performs on stage. Drummer Johnny decides on a villainous intrigue: if this marriage is destroyed, then the sweet girl will probably agree to sing in the jazz band that he organizes... (“Othello” in the musical film “All Night Long”, directed by Basil Dearden, England, 1961.)

Or this: Bianca and Kat, two high school sisters, study at the same college. Everyone loves the first one, but they can’t stand the other one, because she is obstinate and independent. They decide to teach her a lesson by persuading a local hooligan to play the role of an admirer... (“The Taming of the Shrew” in the youth comedy “Ten Things I Hate About You”, directed by Jill Junger, USA, 1999.)

About the attempt to film Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in the genre of science fiction (the film “Forbidden Planet”, directed by Fred McLeod Wilcox, USA, 1956), the famous science fiction writer Stanislav Lem said: “This is at the level of nonsense. And below any criticism, because it was deliberately done according to the principle: God forbid that the viewer thinks for even a minute.”

Isn’t the statement “Shakespeare relevant at all times” sometimes taken too literally? Is it necessary to dress his characters in jeans to make them understandable to the MTV generation? Do I need to replace the sword with a 25 caliber “gun”? This has been debated both in theater and in cinema for decades. But probably the form is not important if the spirit of Shakespeare’s immortal works is conveyed, if his message is clearly readable. After all, the Great Bard, whoever he really was, wanted us to think and learn to reflect, to love and “climb through the windows of our beloved women,” to dream and fight for our dreams. If a film based on his work leaves behind a similar trace, it means that the essence has been captured and conveyed. And they will always argue about the form...

Andrei Tarkovsky, who, alas, was not destined to film Shakespeare, although he always dreamed of it, shared his thoughts in one of his interviews: ““Hamlet” does not need to be interpreted, it does not need to be pulled, like a caftan that is bursting at the seams, over some modern problems, and if it doesn’t crack, then it hangs like on a hanger - shapeless. There are enough of your own thoughts that are immortal to this day. You just need to be able to read them... In my opinion, there has never been a “Hamlet” written by Shakespeare. When you take classical works, masterpieces that are filled with meaning for millions of years to come, forever, forever and ever, then you just need to be able to convey it.”

Many directors, once putting Shakespeare on stage, could not stop. With their enthusiasm, they ignited the actors, who, as if transformed into a Renaissance theater troupe, wandered with them from production to production. For each of them, the Great Bard became the love of their lives.

Akira Kurosawa
“I don’t know if Shakespeare’s plays in film can be as good as in the theater. In principle, no one succeeded, with the exception of Kurosawa. The Japanese “Macbeth” is the best Shakespeare I have ever seen in cinema” – Akira Kurosawa’s film “A Throne of Blood” (1957) received such a flattering review from master Shakespeare scholar Peter Brook.

But this “best Shakespeare” would seem to be terribly far from the real Shakespeare. The action of "Macbeth" was transferred to Japan in the 16th century, torn apart by feudal strife, the characters became different, instead of Shakespeare's text a new one appeared, more modest in volume, the image bore a greater burden. But, moving away from the letter of Shakespeare's play, Kurosawa remained faithful to the main thing in it - the tragedy of characters, brilliantly embodied by actors whose performance amazes with strength and plasticity, unknown in European theater and cinema. The actors' facial expressions and makeup were copied from the masks of classical Japanese Noh theater. It is difficult to forget these faces, sometimes distorted with anger, sometimes supernaturally tense, sometimes almost insane.

The actress who played the role of Lady Macbeth played the madness scene precisely according to these theatrical traditions. Dressed in a white kimono, with a white face-mask, she sat next to a bronze vessel, endlessly washing away invisible blood from her fingers; only her hands moved, like an ominous dance of white moths.

Akira Kurosawa calls Shakespeare one of his favorite authors. He also turned to King Lear in his later film Ran (1985). And although the interpretation of the tragedy is exotic, he managed to convey the spirit of the tragedy. According to critics, some scenes, "despite the silence, sound like Shakespeare's original text."

Few people have staged as many plays by the great playwright as Royal Shakespeare Theater director Peter Brook. He is the creator of the famous performances “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” “The Winter’s Tale,” “Measure for Measure,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Hamlet,” “Romeo and Juliet,” and “Titus Andronicus.” Perhaps someone remembers how his troupe came to Moscow with King Lear. Brooke's work in the theater is a desire to free Shakespeare from museum dust, from academic literalism. He believes that a classic is alive only when it evokes a response from the viewer, when it tells him about the problems that concern him. In all the director's theatrical productions one can feel the influence of modern dramaturgy, philosophy, and politics. That is why they are doomed to be the subject of endless controversy.

For his only Shakespearean adaptation, Brook chose the tragedy King Lear (1970). And although the film adaptation was prepared by all the experience of working in the theater, it was a serious challenge for the director. “King Lear is a mountain whose summit no one has yet reached,” wrote Brooke. - Climbing it, you meet the crashed bodies of the brave predecessors: Olivier here, Lawton there. Terrifying!

The success of the film is largely due to Brook's friend and like-minded person, the famous English actor Paul Scofield, who played the main role. His Lear became one of the greatest acting performances of the century. Scofield managed to combine in his hero greatness and mediocrity, wisdom and blindness, strength and helplessness - traits that are so necessary in order to understand his character.

Grigory Kozintsev
Sergei Gerasimov recalled how 18-year-old Grigory Kozintsev intended to modernize Hamlet. The murder of the king was to be carried out not with the help of old-fashioned poison, but with a high-voltage electric discharge directed into the telephone receiver. Very avant-garde, especially if you remember the words Peter Brook said 40 years later about Kozintsev’s Hamlet: “Kozintsev’s film is attacked by saying that it is academic; That’s right, he’s academic.”

Grigory Mikhailovich’s research and reflections resulted in the books “Our Contemporary William Shakespeare” and “The Space of Tragedy”, and in the films “Hamlet” (1964) and “King Lear” (1970).

Judging by the diaries and letters from the period of work on the films, Shakespeare’s ideas completely dominated the director’s thoughts, his powers of observation were sharpened to the limit, he was constantly thinking about the solution to this or that scene, about the gestures of the actors. It is also curious that Kozintsev looked for parallels between Shakespeare and Russian classics - he constantly turned to the poetry of Pushkin, Blok, Baratynsky, Lermontov, to the thoughts of Dostoevsky, Gogol. Grigory Mikhailovich considered Boris Pasternak not the author of the translation, but rather the Russian version of the tragedy. He corresponded with him, often consulted and shared his thoughts. And when his “Hamlet” was shown in English, Koznitsev insisted that in some places a translation be made “from Pasternak,” since the original text did not convey the ideas conceived by the director.

In the annotation to Hamlet, Kozintsev wrote: “We tried least of all to adapt the famous tragedy to cinema. Something else, the opposite, was important for us: to teach the screen the scale of thoughts and feelings. This is the only reason why it’s worth sitting at the desks of a Shakespearean school these days.”

Everyone who worked with Grigory Mikhailovich united in a real creative union: composer Dmitry Shostakovich, actors Nikolai Cherkasov and Yuri Tolubeev, who came to the cinema with Kozintsev from the Leningrad Drama Theater; it was as if he had rediscovered the genius of Innokenty Smoktunovsky in Hamlet and Yuri Yarvet in Lear.

Franco Zeffirelli
Who was not captivated by Romeo and Juliet, seen by Franco Zeffirelli? His film received two Oscars (1968), two Golden Globes, Donatello's David (Italian Oscar), and many other prizes. Recently, having stood the test of time, it was named the best film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

After looking at many candidates for the main roles (800 young actresses hoped to play Juliet, and 300 actors - Romeo!), the director chose 16-year-old Olivia Hussey and 17-year-old Leonard Whiting, who became the youngest in the history of cinema to perform the roles of Shakespearean lovers. “The actors gave the film what I expected from them: all the perfections and imperfections of youth,” said Zeffirelli.

Recognized masters of their craft took part in the creation of the film: the cinematography by Pasquale de Santis deserved an Oscar, the music was written by Nino Rota; The work of ancient dance directors, fencing specialists, and decorators was also highly appreciated. However, Italy itself became the scenery. Zeffirelli brought the action to true Renaissance nature: Shakespeare’s Verona came to life on the streets of Florence and little Pienza, the scene on the balcony in the Palazzo Borghese near Rome, the interiors of the Capulet house in the ancient Piccolomini Palace!

The same virtues characterize Zeffirelli's two other films - his film debut, The Taming of the Shrew (1967), in which the leading roles were superbly played by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and the later Hamlet (1991), with Mel Gibson. Zeffirelli's films are always beautiful: his subtle flair, developed while working as a theater designer, opera and drama director, is evident. In the theater he directed Othello, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra...

Last year, the title of knight was added to Franco Zeffirelli’s numerous creative titles: the Queen of England knighted him for the numerous performances he staged on the London stage.

Kenneth Branagh
If you think the films of Kozintsev and Brook are too museum-like, Kurosawa is too exotic, and Zeffirelli is too classic, be sure to watch the films of Kenneth Branagh. He filmed Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996), Love's Labour's Lost (1999) and played leading roles in all of these films. Quite a lot for a young director, isn’t it? I will not bore you with a list of the Shakespearean roles he played in theater and cinema, and the plays he staged on the theater stage. He is also a professor of English literature and is especially fond of Shakespeare.

At the age of 35, Branagh decided to fulfill his dream - to film Hamlet. For the first time, the actor felt mature enough for this complex role. The greatest virtue of Branagh's production is that not a single Shakespearean word was removed from the script. No one has ever done this before!

Kenneth Branagh's four-hour Hamlet was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay adaptation and received many different awards. However, there was another important reward. During filming, actor Derek Jacobi solemnly presented Kenneth with a challenge volume of William Shakespeare. According to established tradition, the best Hamlet of each generation gives this volume to the one he considers his worthy successor. And Jacobi, whose Hamlet many years ago inspired Branagh to become an actor, recognized his student as the best Hamlet of the next generation.

Kenneth Branagh can be called an innovator - he often transfers the action of Shakespeare's plays in time and space. But you will certainly be captivated by the surprisingly reliable acting, especially since Shakespeare, Branagh is sure, has no minor characters.

Branagh's films bring together a whole constellation of famous actors - Derek Jacobi, Julie Christie, Emma Thompson, Gerard Depardieu; veterans Judi Dench, Sir John Mills and Sir John Gielgud appear in Hamlet in non-speaking cameo roles. Patrick Doyle writes wonderful music for films; in Hamlet, the main musical theme was performed by Placido Domingo.

In conclusion, I would like to once again recall the words of Andrei Tarkovsky: one only needs to be able to convey Shakespeare through the means of cinema. After all, it seemed to come to the aid of the Great Bard, who once appealed to the imagination of the audience (prologue of “Henry V”):

Oh, if only the muse would ascend, blazing,
To the bright firmament of imagination,
Inspiring that this stage is a kingdom.
Actors are princes, spectators are monarchs!
*Complete our imperfections,
From one face create hundreds
And with the power of thought, turn them into an army.
When we start talking about horses,
Imagine their proud gait;
You must clothe kings with greatness,
Move them to different places
Soaring above time, thickening the years
In a short hour...

Shakespeareisms

The works of Shakespeare are an inexhaustible source of popular words and expressions not only in English, but also in Russian. What is worth only “The whole world is a stage, in it women, men are all actors” (“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”).

It is interesting that for some reason the English were not touched by certain phrases that everyone knows, even those who have never read Shakespeare - for example: “Did you pray at night, Desdemona?” or “There are many such things in the world, friend Horatio.” Maybe it has to do with the peculiarities of the national character?

Translators also contributed to the emergence of Shakespeare's catchphrases. In the oft-quoted line “Horse! Horse! Half a kingdom for a horse!” “through the efforts” of translator Ya.G. Bryansky an annoying inaccuracy crept in. In Shakespeare, King Richard III is much more generous: he offers his entire kingdom for a horse.

And the author of one of the Shakespearean expressions that has taken root in the Russian language is not Shakespeare at all! The phrase “I am afraid for a man” was added by N. Polevoy (1837) when translating Hamlet and, as they say, he guessed right - they loved it in Russia.

But Shakespeare should have no complaints against Polevoy, since he himself committed a historical forgery. The famous words “And you, Brutus?” put into the mouth of Julius Caesar. became immortal, and today few people know that in fact, more precisely according to the testimony of the Roman historian Suetonius, Caesar said in Greek before his death: “And you, my child?”

And in different translations of “Hamlet” the famous words “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” sound like this: “Something is unclean in the Danish kingdom”, “Everything is rotten in the Danish kingdom”, “I foresee the disasters of the Fatherland”, “Know, something evil has happened here.”

Writers on Shakespeare

The very first page of Shakespeare that I read captivated me for the rest of my life, and having mastered his first work, I stood like a man born blind to whom a miraculous hand suddenly granted sight! I knew, I vividly felt that my existence was multiplied by infinity; everything was new and unknown to me, and the unusual light hurt my eyes. Hour by hour I learned to see.
I.V. Goethe

I remember the surprise I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive great aesthetic pleasure. But, having read one after another what are considered his best works: “King Lear”, “Romeo and Julia”, “Hamlet”, “Macbeth”, I not only did not experience pleasure, but felt irresistible disgust, boredom and bewilderment... I believe that Shakespeare cannot be recognized not only as a great, brilliant, but even as the most mediocre writer.
L.N. Tolstoy

But what kind of man is this Shakespeare? I can’t come to my senses! How petty compared to him is Byron the tragedian! I get dizzy after reading Shakespeare. It's like I'm looking into an abyss.
A.S. Pushkin

As a playwright, Shakespeare is dead as a doornail. Shakespeare is for me one of the bastions of the Bastille, and it must fall.
B. Shaw

Shakespeare takes his images from everywhere - from heaven, from earth - there is no prohibition for him, nothing can escape his all-penetrating gaze, he amazes with the titanic power of victorious inspiration, suppresses with the richness and power of his imagination, the brilliance of the highest poetry, the depth and vastness of his enormous mind.
I.S. Turgenev

One gets the feeling that nature mixed the power of reason and unattainable greatness in Shakespeare’s mind with the rudeness and unbearable vulgarity characteristic of the mob.
Voltaire

Shakespeare gave an entire generation the opportunity to feel like a thinking being, capable of understanding.
F.M. Dostoevsky

for the magazine "Man Without Borders"

William Shakespeare began his career in the theater as an actor, playing with Richard Burbage in one of the few professional troupes called the Lord Chamberlain's Men. As a writer, success came to him early: his poetry brought recognition. But when he was 25-26 years old, he switched to writing plays. His first dramatic creation was probably the trilogy about Henry VI, created in 1590-1592. Over the next twenty years, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays. In the first decade, in the 1690s, historical chronicles about the lives of kings appeared - “Richard III” (Richard III, 1593), “Henry V” (Henry V, 1598), etc., philosophical comedies like “Much Ado” out of nothing" (Much Ado About Nothing, 1598) and the tragedy "Romeo and Juliet" (Romeo and Juliet, ca. 1595). According to some, Shakespeare's later work was influenced by the death of his son, father and Queen Elizabeth, so the tragic heroes of such brilliant works as Hamlet (c. 1601), " Othello (1602-1603), King Lear (c. 1605) and Macbeth (c. 1606), although he ended his career with the tragicomedy The Tempest (1612) .

Shakespeare's unsurpassed talent lay in his ability to create deeply psychological, life-like images with all their advantages and disadvantages. His heroes love, hate, strive to fulfill their ambitious plans, like any person. Their universality is such that Lady Macbeth's guilt and Hamlet's melancholy are absolutely understandable to modern people. Shakespeare conveyed all these emotions and experiences exclusively in figurative language, manipulating blank verse, inventing complex metaphors to accurately characterize a character or situation. Bring together a twisted plot, bright, individualized characters, and the ability to skillfully convey the comedy or deep tragedy of a situation, and you will reveal the secret of the playwright’s enduring popularity. It was only a hundred years after Shakespeare's death that his fame began to grow and he rose markedly above his contemporaries, but today you will not find a greater one in the pantheon of British culture. It is impossible to name another playwright who has been quoted more often than Shakespeare, or whose plays have had such an enviable stage life. Shakespeare's works serve as a source of inspiration for composers, artists and writers. His work exclusively influenced all creators of art and science - from Dickens to Verdi and Freud.

We know little about Shakespeare's religious and political views and his sexual inclinations; There is only a few documentary evidence to judge his life. Even his lifetime portraits have not survived. We know that he was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, the son of a glover and his wife, and was the third eldest of eight children. At the age of 18, he had already married Anne Hathaway, who became pregnant with the 26-year-old daughter of a local landowner, who two years later, in 1585, gave birth to twins, but by 1592 William was apparently already living in London. The theater served as his source of income. He did not seek to publish his works: all the plays published during his lifetime were published without his participation, and the first collection of his works appeared only in 1623, seven years after his death. Shakespeare made his fortune (quite decent, by the way) not at all from royalties or deductions from the fees due to him as a playwright whose plays were performed on stage. He was a co-owner of the Lord Chamberlain's Men troupe (received the status of the King's Men when James I ascended the throne) - it brought him income along with the Globe and Blackfriars theaters that he and his companions owned. Around 1613, Shakespeare retired from business and returned to Stratford, where three years later he died of unknown causes, bequeathing to his wife “the second of my best beds.” By 1670, Shakespeare's line had died out, but his name lives on in his hometown: in museums, on tea towels (with the inscription "Away, damn stain!") and at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.