As a child, I don't know how young, my favorite VHS tape was A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Michael Hoffman, and I have been told that I watched it constantly. I suppose that I understood the plot or I would have not liked it much. Maybe I only liked the costumes of the fairies and the easily understood comedic elements of parts. Being young, I probably didn't fully understand the plots of any movies that were not made by Disney, anyway.
In 7th grade, English class required the reading of this play. I enjoyed the reading of it, and had fun with the small part of the combined roles of Cobweb, Peaseblossem and Mustardseed in the scene my group was assigned. Playing 3 different fairies at once, I found out a way to duck behind objects in the room to make it seem, at least I thought, as if I really was different fairies appearing from all directions.
That year, I met my best friend who is a Shakespeare fan and had been in her elementary school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream as Puck. Her favorite plays by Shakespeare, besides A Midsummer Night's Dream are As You Like It, and Twelfth Night.
I remember being taken to see Hamlet at some point many years ago. In 9th grade, English class had us read Romeo and Juliet. I really liked it. 10th grade, we read Macbeth. I really liked that too.
Last summer, my best friend once again starred as Robin Goodfellow as she had in 6th grade, this time in a production not tied with the school. She earned herself the front page of the local newspaper. Her performance was amazing, showing brilliant understanding and interpretation of the text, and letting her own personality, very fitting to the role, shine through in her manner enough for my personal viewing of the part be extremely comical.
Just recently I went to see the school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was not especially wonderful. I have dislikes of some of the acting styles of the regular students whom appear in the school plays and musicals. Some actors I was quite impressed with. Helena and Demetrius have been accused of having an offstage infatuation with each other, which made the kiss they shared near the end of the play quite interesting, play aside. Not to mention the acting of the two, which nearly stole the show from Puck, who was quite accomplished in her interpretation of character.
While studying Macbeth, English class watched a movie that explained why Shakespeare is a genius playwright. The plays were targeted towards the "groundlings", it said. These were the poor, uneducated people who paid only one penny to be admitted to a play, allowed to do this to fill up the space right before show time. Because the plays were written for the groudlings, the easily understood jokes and the catchy descriptive phrases were repeated in homes and therefore used for centuries afterward.
Shakespeare seems complicated because it is written in a language that we barely understand today. When we are able to finally understand the meaning of the words, it seems ingenious still for it's mastery of rhyme and syllabus*. After we get past this, perhaps even think it is stupid, there is still the matter of plot. Maybe the meaning of the words that is being used to show the plot seems simplistic and exaggerated, which is offsetting when trying to extract what is happening and why, but the meaning of what is happening, and the way it describes life is intriguing. These plays may have been written to attract approval of an audience, but when analyzed, the literal actions of characters explain and question human nature and and thought.
If the obvious moral or idea that is shown from the play is only how deep the meaning goes, I am not sure. For me, it is often hard for me to even get this far with these plays when I have to go through the steps of even understanding what they are saying and who is who.
Anyway, that is all I have to say on the matter on Shakespeare.
* note: not a real word in this context
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