Shakespeare and Me: Great Writers, Actors and Directors on What the Bard Means to Them - and Us

by Susannah Carson, Harold Bloom (Foreword)

Why Shakespeare? What explains our continued fascination with his poems and plays? In Shakespeare and Me, Susannah Carson invites 38 actors, directors, scholars and writers to share stories of their own personal relationship with Shakespeare. We hear from Ralph Fiennes on interpreting Coriolanus for a modern filmic audience, James Earl Jones on reclaiming Othello as a tragic hero, Sir Ben Kingsley on communicating Shakespeare's ideas through performance, Julie Taymor on turning Prospero into Prospera, Brian Cox on social conflict in Shakespeare's time and ours, Germaine Greer on the playwright's home life, Dame Harriet Walter on the complexity of his heroines, and Sir Antony Sher on feeling at home in Shakespeare's language. Together they provide a fresh appreciation of Shakespeare's works as a living legacy to be read, seen, performed, adapted, revised, wrestled with, and embraced.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction, Essays, Theatre, Literary Criticism, Drama, Classics

528 pages, Paperback

First published April 9, 2013

About the author

Susannah Carson is an American author, editor, and academic. She received her Ph.D. from Yale, after earning graduate degrees at Paris III, La Sorbonne-Nouvelle and Lyon II, L’Université des Lumières. Her work has appeared in scholarly publications, newspapers, and magazines, including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, Seventeenth-Century French Studies, and the collection Religion, Ethics, and History in the French Long Seventeenth Century. Her first collection of essays was A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Authors on Why We Read Jane Austen. She also serves as the Literary Director for First Comics.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Living with Shakespeare” is a book that should be valuable to lovers of the Bard. For the most part it is, and the idea of asking notable writers, actors, scholars, directors, etc. to write something about Shakespeare and then compiling those articles into a single text is a nice idea.
The text opens with a characteristic Intro written by Harold Bloom. The intro tends to be more about Mr. Bloom than Mr. Shakespeare, and it is both frustrating and interesting to read. So typical of Harold Bloom, there should be no surprises there.
I approached the book not as a single set piece, but as individual essays. Therefore I would read a few essays at a time, then put the text down and read something else. Once that book was completed, I would return to read a few more essays from “Living with Shakespeare” and so on until I had the text completed. I think reading it in this fashion will allow you to dialogue with, and digest the ideas in the text more easily then reading it in one continuous cycle.
The book is full of many hits and misses. I will focus first on the book’s weaknesses, and then finish with its strengths. Notable among the worst of the essays in the collection are the ones by Cicely Berry-a very dull and self serving piece, and James Earl Jones’ essay which is filled with ludicrous ideas and choppy didactic writing. Mr. Jones writes about “Othello”, and the text has a total of three essays about that play. None of them are any good, and the editor should have tossed them. They appear in a row, and they really drag the collection down. Two other big letdowns are the essays by James Franco (more mystifying than his Oscar host performance) and Julie Taymor. Both are narcissistic and uninteresting.
However, there is more to celebrate about this text than to complain. “Living with Shakespeare” opens with a bang with a brilliant and simplistically profound essay by Bill Willingham about storytelling. I also enjoyed many of the essays by actors, especially Rory Kinnear’s (very interesting) and Brian Cox’s scholarly yet easy to consume piece called “I Say it is the Moon”. Mr. Cox’s essay breaks new ground and is very accessible. It is a highlight of the text. Especially surprising was the essay “What’s in a Name?” by James Prosek. Mr. Prosek is known primarily as a nature writer, but he produces one of the best essays in the book. The collection also ends as well as it began with the writer Isabel Allende writing an appropriately sentimental and lovely piece.
One last recommendation, most of the essays assume a familiarity with much of Shakespeare’s work. This is not a text for someone not well versed in the plays.
“Living with Shakespeare” is an interesting contribution to the canon of books about Shakespeare. I will keep a copy on my shelf.

[Carl Brookins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living With Shakespeare Amazon
edited by Susannah Carson
A 2013 Vintage Original release
from Random House. 493 pages.

A very long time ago, my parents collaborated to make to me a gift of a beautiful book that my father originally acquired in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1928. “The Complete Dramatic and, Poetic Works of William Shakespeare,” was compiled and discussed by Professor Frederick D. Losey of Harvard. The book was published in 1926 by The John C. Winston Company of Philadelphia and Chicago. It is a beautiful leather-bound volume of thin gilt-edged pages. The book survived our travails in Goodwell, Oklahoma, between 1930 and 1938. I treasure and refer to it often. And I had the great good fortune to perform a minor part in a community theater production of “Othello,” a good many years ago.

And now there is a companion book, about which, I cannot say enough good things. “Living With Shakespeare,” is a series of essays from a wide array of writers, directors and others about their lives with this astounding writer’s works. Some are funny, some of them are irreverent. Some will engender disagreement and all will add to our understanding of the greatest writer in the English language. Ask yourself; how it is that 400 years after he lived, his plays are being re-interpreted, his sonnets sung, his insights helping us to better understand ourselves?

The book is smoothly organized with a few fine photographs scattered throughout the thirty-eight original essays from the likes of Jane Smiley, Joyce Carol Oates, Isabel Allende, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley and James Earl Jones. Readers should not neglect to read the excellent introduction by Susannah Carson. Bravo to all the aforementioned individuals, as well as those who produced this handsome volume. Readers should not pass by Harold Bloom’s precise and pointed Foreword that echoes the question so often asked in literature classes, “Why Shakespeare?” And the answer comes still, after four hundred years. “Who else is there?” Who else, indeed.

[Amy Or · Rating 4 out of 5]

For people interested in Shakespeare, this is an interesting read.
It interviews people who in their career has direct relations with the Bard, either acting or producing his plays.
While some of them are mundane in emphasizing the importance of the Bard, some did a great job in examining Shakespeare's language, giving their perspective on how things should be interpreted and how the works and words should be treated in a present day society when kingdoms are sparse and leaders can't really readily get away with brutality and murders, at least not in a democratic society.
The one surprise, however, is James Franco's piece at the very end of the book. I know how many people feel about him, I do as well. But it's a rather earnest piece about how obsessed he is about "My Own Private Idaho" and compares it with Henry VI. Not saying it is the best researched piece, but it's nice that sometimes people can pull the Bard off from the pedestal and just try to see the stories as they are, as human relationships and emotions, without a halo. It's an interesting way to end the book.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of essays by actors, directors, writers and a few others with connections to Shakespeare. There are one or two academics on the scene, but in general these pieces are written by people who've been involved in actual productions of the plays, or have had some hand in using Shakespeare in other ways (such as the novelist who has written a bunch of historical detective stories in which various Shakespearean characters appear).
I read this in paperback form, from the Library, and had hoped to get a ebook version so I could highlight a bunch of things that are written. Unfortunately there isn't an ebook version, to my surprise. I might just have to buy a real live book version after all!

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's like Orlando says in As You Like It, I take some joy to read about what Shakespeare is, because I would be thinking of him. Clearly the authors, artists and scholars pulled together to make this collection have varying attitudes towards the playwright and poet. Some were enthralled, others were overflowing with praise (particularly Harold Bloom, and what a sea-change it has been for me since The Invention of the Human first came out, not so much for him), and quiet a few had nothing more than a trip down memory lane. Even if the boards were trodden upon ages ago, or childhood memories of the edition first read, these experience count as a cultural movement that separate the initiated readers (otherwise known as Shakespeare snobs) from those who can only yawn through the plays and complain about confusing high school lessons. I agree with most of the authors that teaching the plays is far removed from enjoying the plays, and if personal experience weighs more than academic excellence, this could be the start of yet another way of getting into Shakespeare boundless sea.

[David Sweet · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books on Shakespeare I’ve read. Entertaining, inspiring, sometimes funny, a few times pedantic (Bloom, as usual). Highly recommended for Shakespeare fans.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Living With Shakespeare is a collection of essays by various folk, ranging from academics and authors to actors and directors, and even a scientist, about their relationship with WS. As you would expect, some were very interesting; others, not. Most fell between those two extremes. What follows is not a review per se but rather a collection of thoughts and impressions I jotted down as I finished reading each piece. It’s fascinating what people discover when they tangle with the Bard.

“Foreword,” Harold Bloom – Lord, I loathe Bloom! And sentences like this only confirm my dislike: “At their strongest, as in Iago, Shakespeare’s grand negations are figures in a negative poetics which is a kind of dramatic negative theology” (p. x). Fortunately, only a couple of the essays that follow read like this so don’t be daunted.

“A Little Monkey Business,” Bill Willingham – Rather tiresome essay about the over-flogged horse that the reader/audience is a collaborator with the author. Not badly written, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of interest or insight. [I have read several of Willingham’s Fables volumes and enjoyed them.]

“Speaking Shakespeare,” Sir Antony Sher – My note here says “Most interesting and insightful so far,” which seems a bit silly now considering it’s only the second essay in the volume. However, as it turned out, it did remain one of the more interesting and insightful entries. I’m finding that the best critiques of WS are coming from people who actually work with the texts – actors, authors, directors, etc. – as opposed to the strictly academic writers. In that spirit, I would recommend the following: Shakespeare, Mark van Doren; Women of Will, Tina Packer; Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets, Don Paterson.

“Teaching Shakespeare to Actors,” Camille Paglia – She’s still alive? I didn’t like her back in the ‘80s when she was often in the news and I still don’t. If I’m reading this essay correctly, she’s saying that American troupes staging Shakespeare should stick to traditional forms because American audiences have a hard enough time understanding that much less anything remotely experimental. Aaaagh! Fortunately, based on subsequent essays, no one appears to be listening to her.

“The Architecture of Ideas,” Sir Ben Kingsley – A perhaps overheated plea to respect language, its rhythms and beauty, and not be seduced by technology or the idea that language doesn’t matter. This essay put me in mind of two versions of Macbeth I watched recently: The 2015 film by Justin Kurzel with Michael Fassbender, and the 2010 film by Rupert Goold with Patrick Stewart. I like both actors but Fassbender’s Macbeth just didn’t work for me. There didn’t seem to be an understanding of what Kingsley was getting at in this essay, and so much of the language was cut that only someone already familiar with the play would have been able to follow what was happening much of the time [beautifully shot, however]. I loved Stewart’s version so much I had to buy the DVD. Holy crap, that man can act! The opening scene alone is amazing enough but the rest of the DVD lives up to it. [I also liked the 1971 Polanski effort with Jon Finch.]

“King Lear in Retrospect,” Cicely Berry – Berry is the director of voice at the Royal Shakespeare Company. I had hoped to read more about how she works with actors to bring out the power of WS’s language. There’s a lot about where and whom she’s taught, but not a lot of specifics about the what.

“Method and Madness,” Tobias Menzies – Occasionally I googled the authors, esp. the actors, because I wanted to know if I’d seen them in any context. I watch a lot of British TV but have a problem hooking names up with faces. It turns out that Menzies was the son of the Nazi-sympathizing innkeepers in “The White Feather,” an early episode from Foyle’s War. I have two notes from this essay, one concerns Menzies’ point that there’s no single or “correct” way to portray a WS character, and the other concerns the theme of using “madness” as an avenue to discovering who you are and why you’re here (in this essay he focuses on “Lear” and “Hamlet”).

“Character and Conundrum,” Rory Kinnear – Kinnear writes about how one approaches creating a character. With WS, there’s often little to go on, and an actor has to make decisions about how and why a character does what he or she does. He discussed how he approached two roles: Angelo in “Measure for Measure” and “Bolingbroke” in “Richard II.” He played the former as someone who believes in what he preaches but then finds himself in over his head when the Duke puts him in charge. He played Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV) as a man who truly did not want the crown but found himself becoming seduced by its power (to his dismay). [I didn’t have to google this one.]

“I Know a Hawk from a Handsaw Regardless of the Weather, But That’s Pretty Much It,” Matt Sturges – Don’t have much on this one. Just a quote from p. 102: “[A]s with so many things, with Shakespeare you get out exactly what you put in.”

The next three essays comprise the “Othello Trilogy”:

“The Sun God,” James Earl Jones – Jones focuses on the crucial temptation scene when Othello’s fatal flaw overwhelms his nobility and the inevitable tragedy follows. I found it interesting that Jones denies that Othello succumbs to jealousy. Instead his rage stems from the cognitive dissonance of his image of Desdemona and the one Iago conjures. He also observes that (in his interpretation) Iago too is broken, becoming a man with nothing to lose. Othello is not a victim since he freely chooses to believe the worst (otherwise there’s no tragedy). He appends some notes he made about how he would stage the scene that sounds like it would be amazing if produced.

“Othello in Love,” Eamonn Walker – I own the DVD of Walker’s and Tim McInnerny’s performance of “Othello” at the Globe. Walker’s Othello was fine but the stand out was McInnerny as Iago. It’s a revelation for me since I’ve only seen him in the Black Adder series, Black Death and Severance, among a few other things. But back to the essay: This is an example of how a different actor takes a wholly different approach to the character, though a no-less-legitimate one. [My notes here comment on Iago: In Jones’ interpretation, Iago is Othello’s darker alter ego – the man who does the dirty work and allows Othello to remain noble and pure; in Walker’s, Iago’s motivations are thwarted love and repressed sexual feelings toward the Moor.]

“Othello: A Play in Black and White,” Barry John – This was the most interesting of the “Othello” essays. John recounts how he participated in an adaptation of “Othello” that centered around an acting troupe putting on the play, and how the story of their production mirrored that of the play. It sounds like a fascinating experiment and I wish I could have seen it.

“Re-Revising Shakespeare,” Jess Winfield – Winfield is one of the founders of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, a comedy group specializing in abridged versions of the plays. The point Winfield makes here is that WS is not the Word of God. He’s meant to be chopped up, edited and revised (just like Will himself was constantly doing and just like any playwright/acting company does). He’s a welcome antidote to the deification of WS Bloom seems determined to effect. [I read Winfield’s My Name Is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs and Shakespeare in 2009 and gave it four stars so I suppose I’m recommending it.]

“I Say It Is the Moon,” Brian Cox – I first saw Cox in Rob Roy as the malicious factor or as the intelligence officer in the first few episodes of the Sharpe series. Either way, I instantly loved his performance and always enjoy watching him (even in crap like Troy). Here, he writes about Shakespeare’s plays as allegories of things breaking down and the restoration of order. This is also the first essay that raises the idea that WS is constantly searching, interrogating and exploring but never arriving at an answer or a final destination.

“The Question of Coriolanus,” Ralph Fiennes – This essay carries on from Cox’s thoughts about order vs. chaos. Both essays tend to slight Volumnia, Coriolanus’ mother. For an extended discussion about her, I strongly recommend the chapter in Tina Packer’s Women of Will.

“Trial by Theatre, or Free-Thinking in Julius Caesar,” Richard Scholar – Traditional academic essay (though not as awful as the Foreword or an upcoming chapter); readable but not terribly interesting. I don’t think WS deliberately set up a conflict between “free-thinking” and “authoritarian control” (Brutus vs. Caesar), though it reflects the theme of the last few pieces – that WS is adept at asking questions but refuses to answer them (or provides several possible answers). Scholar did afford me the opportunity to imagine an experiment I would have liked to try with my English classes when I was teaching (lo, many years ago now). Rather than write a paper that they’d probably crib from the Internet anyway, I’d have my students pretend to be an actor in whatever play we were studying and chronicle how they approached their the role and how they would act the part (modeled on Jones’ example in his essay and other instances from later in this volume).

“Saying in The Merchant of Venice,” Stanley Cavell – A reflection on Shylock’s acceptance of the verdict: Sudden & final. A realization that his fury is against all Christians (p. 257). Shylock loses the power of speech (figuratively) because he realizes that he will no longer be allowed to speak. He’s not recognized as “human” and neither entitled nor capable of it.

“Searching for Shylock,” F. Murray Abraham – Starts off as his thoughts on Shylock and what motivates him and it promised to be interesting but then it devolved into an essay on how the physical space in theaters affects how the actors work, and an extended paean to the theaters and actors he worked with while playing Shylock.

“Boldness Be My Friend,” Jessie Austrian, Noah Brody & Ben Steinfeld – How to present the “problem play” “Cymbeline.” First off, toss out the idea that there’s a “problem” to solve. Goes into a discussion of how they approached the play and tried to bring it to life. A concrete example of actors taking WS’s play and making it a collaboration.

“Killing Shakespeare and Making My Play,” Karin Coonrod – A description of how Coonrod interpreted “Love’s Labor’s Lost” [sic] and how she brought it to life on the stage.

“Playing Shakespeare at The Globe,” Dominic Dromgoole – Started off with what threatened to be a curmudgeonly jeremiad against modernizing WS (and it still tread closely to that) but veered off into a discussion about the power of language (e.g., Henry V’s speech to Harfleur’s governor does what all his siege engines and troops could not – gives him the city).

“Tolstoy and the Shakespearean Gesture,” Angus Fletcher – Outside of Bloom’s foreword, this is the most hideous of the academic essays in this volume. I knew I was in for a long read when I ran smack into this sentence in the first paragraph: “In this curious art form, action on a stage implied a psychological austerity of probable causes, supported by a suggestive, if never quite determining, rhetorical style of utterance” (p. 316). When all was read and done, I think he’s arguing that WS’s genius lies in his ability to create real people through everyday speech and action as opposed to the declamatory style of contemporary playwrights like Kyd and Marlowe.

“The Red Scarf,” J.D. McClatchy – A quote & a thought: “But it seems odd that Shakespeare, the language’s premier poet, should have had almost no direct influence on his poetic progeny” (pp. 333-4). Not enough of an English lit student to judge the worth of this insight.

“Spring Imagery in Warwickshire,” Germaine Greer – Speculation on WS’s relationship with his family and hometown. She argues that he spent considerable time in Stratford, most often in spring. Interesting enough if you’re writing a novel or a class paper and wanted to establish WS in his milieux. I don’t know how valuable this insight is really.

“What’s in a Name? Or Unnamed in the Forest,” James Prosek – Here’s my note: “WS wrote about the power of language, esp. names. Many characters assume different names and thus become different people (esp. the women), or they can’t change their names and duly suffer (“Romeo & Juliet”).” I was reminded here of Isabella in “Measure for Measure,” who is speechless by the end of the play, when she is apparently expropriated by the returned Duke, who has regained his name and the power of speech.

“The Sea Change,” David Farr – Another instance where I left myself an ambiguous note. This was a very short essay and didn’t hold my interest.

“Looking for Illyria,” Alan Gordon – First part is Gordon’s fascination with the Fool archetype and how he parleyed that into a series of novels using Feste and Viola as protagonists. The second part laments the fact that most Shakespeare productions where fools factor in do not cast real fools and tend to miss out on all the depth such casting could give the characters. [Despite the mixed reviews I’ve seen on GR, I was intrigued by the premise of Gordon’s novels and may decide to put them on my wish list.]

“Shakespeare’s Siblings,” Eleanor Brown – The theme of the last few essays is authors incorporating WS into their own works. Here, Brown discusses how family relationships in WS influenced her novels.

“A Star Danced,” Eve Best – Reflections on her portrayals of Lady Macbeth and Beatrice. Both are looking to repair their relationships with the men they love. Lady Macbeth errs fatally in her attempt to bridge the gap; Beatrice is more fortunate.

“Two Loves, or the Eternal Triangle,” Dame Harriet Walter – Many of WS’s plays revolve around a woman competing with a man for the love of the hero (see Sonnets as well): “Much Ado About Nothing” – Benedick-Beatrice-Claudio (et al.); “Merchant of Venice” – Antonio-Bassanio-Portia; “Hamlet” – Hamlet-Ophelia-Gertrude; “Troilus & Cressida” – Troilus-Cressida-Diomedes. She also brings up WS’s misogyny. She ends sounding forlorn: “I need to believe that he includes women in his embrace of humanity. But the truth is that I have to lay aside my aching curiosity and accept that I can never know the man whose words I love to speak and hear” (p. 406).

“Odd Man Out,” Jane Smiley – I couldn’t finish A Thousand Acres, Smiley’s version of “King Lear,” though I’ve liked Smiley’s nonfiction essays and reviews, including this one, which explores what Smiley sees as a maturation of WS’s thoughts about love and loss, from the apocalyptic ending of “Lear” to “The Winter’s Tale,” where “the end of the world is not the end of the world” (p. 411).

“The Living Drama,” Dame Margaret Drabble – Not sure what to make of this one. The last sentence suggests that the stage (less so film) offers the greatest opportunity to present WS in a variety of interpretations.

“The Tragedy of Imagination in Antony and Cleopatra,” Joyce Carol Oates – The conversion of “brute reality” into “lyric illusion” is the ultimate goal of WS in this play and in all of his work. Reality wins out in other plays but here the illusion triumphs.

“War and Love,” Maxine Hong Kingston – “Romeo & Juliet” as a horror story about love destroyed by a senseless war.

“On the Terrible and Unexpected Fate of the Star-Crossed Lovers,” Peter David – A whimsical piece describing the reactions of a mostly teen-age audience to the ending of Luhrmann’s “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet.”

“Shakespeare and Four-Colour Magic,” Conor McCreery – This was one of my favorite essays. McCreery makes two points: If you can’t see WS, the next best thing is to read him in a comics format, which also can convey the dynamism that staging does in a theater or on film. Secondly, WS is a master at shifting tones in the plays, moving from comedy to tragedy and back. This is increasingly uncommon in today’s authors and directors pressed to keep narratives linear and clear to attract the broadest audience.

“Rough Magic,” Julie Taymor – Discusses her production of “The Tempest” with Helen Mirren as Prospera and the subtle changes a change in gender entailed: (1) Changed the focus from father-centered concerns about a daughter to mother-centered; (2) the disavowal of magic means a return to the restricted life of a woman in Milanese society (symbolized by Mirren reassuming the restrictive corset of courtly dress); and (3), unlike Prospero, who regains his freedom along with everyone else at the end, Prospera sacrifices hers.

“My Own Private River,” James Franco – Description of Franco’s recutting of Gus van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho,” focusing on River Phoenix’s character of Mike Waters, a stand-in for Poins. “Shakespeare creates such a vivid, rich, and complex world that we can fruitfully focus on just one part of it and find inspiration for a whole variety of artistic endeavors” (p. 488).

“Enamoured with Shakespeare,” Isabel Allende – “Language was his only tool” (p. 491). If there’s one thing I’ve learned reading these essays it’s that WS – as far as his plays were concerned – expected his actors and audience to use a wealth of extralinguistic tools to drive the story. Otherwise, the usual stuff about WS’s genius and universality. This essay reminded me of Ted Reynold’s short story “Can These Bones Live,” which explored the possibility that there is something that transcends the aspirations and concerns of humans and is truly universal [highly recommended if you can find a copy].

If you’re still with me, I would recommend this book. Not every author is going to talk about something you’re interested in but if you have any interest in theater/film and Shakespeare, there’ll be something here that will catch your eye.

[Jenny Aldridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only started reading Shakespeare a couple of years ago and am still only 70% through the plays but this book gave a great insight into the performers, directors and novelists who have been involved and inspired by his great works.
It was a reminder of the stories and characters that he bought to life. More importantly though was their personal insights into how they approached the plays as characters or directors or as a source for their own writing.
Some of the contributors are famous actors but I equally enjoyed the input from those I’d never heard of before.
It only lacked a contribution by the wonderful Judy Dench but she has now written her own Shakespeare story which I’m looking forward to reading.

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like Shakespeare you are in good company. A variety of essays and insights from those that owe him much.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why Shakespeare?

Well, just since his plays offer eternal insights into human nature, society, and the difficulties of relationships.

And since through his masterful storytelling, we learn about the persistent themes of affection, influence, suspiciousness, unfaithfulness, and the human condition. His characters, from the catastrophic protagonist to the comic jester, provide a mirror to our own lives, teaching us about understanding, sympathy different perspectives, and the consequences of our actions.

Shakespeare also enriches our understanding of language and its power, showing how words can convey deep emotions, create vivid imagery, and express complex ideas.

Bloom sums up the premise of this book best: There is no God but God, and his name is William Shakespeare. Yahweh is not God. William Shakespeare is God. Heinrich Heine said, “There is a God, and his name is Aristophanes.” On Heine’s model, I again remark: there is a God, there is no God but God, and his name is William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare did not set out to create a religion, or to define us. We can never know his motives—seemingly to fill seats, write good parts for his actors, stay out of the sight of Walsingham, Elizabeth’s Chief of the Secret Service, and so avoid the fate of Thomas Kyd, who was tortured, and Christopher Marlowe, who was stabbed to death. In the plays, we find traces of Shakespeare’s evolution as an artist. He swerves from the influence of Ovid, Chaucer, and Marlowe, and discovers that the only opponent worthy of agon is the writer of his own earlier plays. Not Shakespeare as man, but Shakespeare as playwright was the source of his own continued artistic struggle to break free of self-over determination….

The goal of this collection of essays is to reacquaint readers with the Shakespeare they already love and to help them get to know that other, trickier Shakespeare too.

The essays cover a broad range of experiences (reading, erforming, adapting, interpreting), and the essayists offer a wide variety of professional backgrounds (actors, directors, scholars, poets, novelists, graphic novelists, and even one naturalist-explorer).

Recommended.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, especially the essays by actors. James Earl Jones on interpreting Othello is particularly brilliant.

Maxine Hong Kingston's excerpt from a short story she wrote in 1977 (1977!) is striking totally aside from any points she makes about trying to teach them Romeo and Juliet, because I do imagine these kids in her English class grew up to be Trump voters...not because of her assessments of their intelligence but because of their unexamined uninformed opinions stubbornly held in the face of actual experience.

"Who owns the electricity?" a boy with an 85 IQ and a third grade reading level asked one day. The brother [her English teacher character] recognized a "teachable moment," as these happy seconds were called in college. He explained how water, electricity, gas, and oil originally belonged to nobody and everybody. Like the air. "But the corporations that control electricity sell it to the rest of us," he said. "Well, of course they do," said the student; "I'd sell the air if I had discovered it." "What if some people can't afford to buy it?" "Whoever discovered it deserves to be paid for it," said the stubborn boy. "It's Communist not to let him make all the money he can." Although the students could not read or follow logic, they blocked him with their anti-Communism, which seemed to come naturally to them, without effort or study. He had thought that it was self-evident that air, at least, belongs to all of us. The students' parents were on welfare, unemployment, and workmen's compensation, but they defended capitalism without knowing what it was called.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of essays by actors, directors and producers writing about their own love for, and participation in, William Shakespeare's plays. Each one is different and each one helped me see things in the plots and/or characters that I hadn't before. It was fascinating to look at the plays through their eyes and consider things from so many different creative perspectives. The writing is excellent, and the writers generous in sharing their experiences with, and their philosophies about, the characters, plots, settings and dialogue in the plays. There are thirty-eight essays in all, written by such illustrious persons as Sir Ben Kingsley, James Earl Jones, Ralph Fiennes, and Joyce Carol Oates. This book is an education, and so much fun. I came away determined to watch the plays I've never seen and to revisit some of my favourites. I loved everything about Shakespeare and Me.

[Michele Ricart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adding more of a commentary than a review, I'd like to say as an actor or former actor or whatever I am, this book was a delight to read. Hearing the wide range of artists talk about their experiences with the different plays would cause me to reminisce about my experiences while reading, performing, or watching that play. That's what Shakespeare does. It grabs a hold of your emotions. All of them. It's about passion. And the contributors of this book seem to understand that. They all have an intimate, interesting story about how Shakespeare touched them. When acting, my favorite roles were when I was performing Shakespeare and I received the most praise from my peers when I performed Shakespearen roles. This book inspires me to hit the stage again!

[Bernie4444 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anything but stale, flat, and unprofitable

This is a most excellent collection of views of and writing about William Shakespeare. Their other books are possibly better books but that does not distract from this great collection of writers, directors, and actors.

There are a few pictures from some of the various plays (I like pictures).

Not that every section was not good. However, my two favorites possibly because I like their work is the section “The Architect of Ideas” by Ben Kinsley and “Rough Magic” by Julie Taymor. I think Julie is sort of snot but she put together some great works including “The Tempest.”

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book tremendously, because Shakespeare’s plays have brought me so much joy. This very well edited set of essays features an enriching variety of perspectives on contemporary interpretations of his works. It helps to be familiar with the plays, both comedies and tragedies, to get the most out of the essays. My favorite came near the end— Julie Taymor’s essay about her movie version of The Tempest, starring Helen Mirren as Prospera, and the choice to change the gender of the magician/ exiled royal.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed and learned from this book of essays on Shakespeare, and it has already inspired me to watch the DVD of The Tempest starring Helen Mirren as 'Prospera,' directed by Julie Taymor - one of the essayists in the book. I did find a couple of the essays by academics a little bit of a slog but not so much so that i didn't read them. I would recommend this book to actors and anyone else interested in Shakespeare's plays.

[Nichola · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any book of essay, some I connected with more than others. This one took a long time to get through, as I kept putting it down and needing to remind myself to pick it up again. I liked the ones about the Globe theater and the Complete Abridged play especially. There were more than a couple that wow, I was dragged down by, and one was by an actor I never would have guessed could bore me. I guess writing about Shakespeare can bring out a different side of someone.

[Scott Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Its tough to rate a book like this because it has about 40 writers and thus the chapters vary greatly in quality. I love almost everything related to Shakespeare but I just didn't get into this book.

Many of the essays were written by actors and directors so maybe I'm just not the right audience for this since I'm neither.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection lost two stars because of James Franco's inane, solipsistic not-about-Shakespeare-at-all penultimate essay which brought everything else (mostly good!) down. Fun to read the writing of so many artists like Julie Taymor, F. Murray Abraham, among others, but come on, James Franco? No thank you.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

My boy Wills...you wonder, sometimes, what would have happened to western civilization if this fella hadn't trod the boards and given voice to so many astounding characters. I adore hearing professionals talking shop.

[Maja 🎀 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depending on the author each essay is an easier or more difficult read.
Really enjoyed the insights in multiple productions of Shakespeare‘s plays, but would recommend reading all the mentioned ones first for better umderstanding.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some essays have merit, but often, these are pretty self-indulgent and boring. A few gems in the rough.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great essays from those who know the most about performing or directing or writing about Shakespeare.

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

12/20

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a journey we have been on! I have been reading this book off and on since last fall and finally find myself at the end. It is a terrific read for lovers of Shakespeare and well worth the time.

[MB Shakespeare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essays on WS from actors, directors, filmmakers, writers, etc.

Great read!

[Scott D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Isabelle Allende essay would be a great piece for high schoolers. James Earl Jones’ was charming and warm. And, as always, Harold Bloom is a cranky old fuddy-duddy.

[Reza Shirazi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of essays that gives you multiple perspectives from actors, directors, writers and others.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are directing or playing Othello, or teaching it, please buy this book and try James Earl Jones’ interpretation in “The Sun God.” It sounds amazing; I want to see this interpretation. Ralph Fiennes directed “Coriolanus” as a film and I haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet. Similarly, Julie Taymor discusses her film of “The Tempest,” which very much makes me want to see it too. F. Murray Abraham talks about playing Shylock on tour and how each house had its own personality and colored the performances. As well as actors and directors, nearly all of them British or American, except for a few, also writers and professors discuss how they use Shakespeare. Anthony Sher is British now, but he was raised in South Africa, he did most of his Shakespeare at RSC, with the exception of a joint produced production of “The Tempest” in Cape Town. No Canadians here, well, except for Conor McCreery, who reports how seeing “The Tempest” with his high school at Stratford, ON changed his life. A comic book reader, he became a writer with Kill Shakespeare, Vol. 1 when he realized there were only minor differences between Caliban and Wolverine. There are few Americans or British in this collection who didn’t do their productions on Broadway or off- Broadway, at the Globe, in London, --San Diego’s Globe doesn’t seem to count here and other Shakespeare companies are similarly excluded-- or the RSC, except for Jess Winfield’s Reduced Shakespeare Company and Fiasco Theater Company. There are writers in this collection whose work uses Shakespeare. I hadn’t heard of Alan Gordon and his novels about Shakespeare’s Fools that begin with Thirteenth Night. They sound great. And of course he’s right that actual clowns should be cast as Shakespeare’s fools.

Joss Whedon has just directed his friends in Much Ado About Nothing on film; he, or one of the actors, couldn’t also have been asked for an essay? Paul Gross wrote, directed, and acted in the three season long television show “Slings and Arrows” set at a fictional Canadian Shakespeare festival. And he played “Hamlet” in Stratford, among others. He, or one of his collaborators, couldn’t have written an essay? I really enjoyed this, but feel it could have been better for being geographically broader, while for my taste, leaving out some of the dry professors.

I received this book from Amazon Vine Program 3.7.13 in return for an honest review.

[Chris Craddock · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young lad went to see a production of Hamlet and when asked for his reaction he replied, "I found Hamlet to be riddled with cliches." The story may be apocryphal, but it illustrates that so many of the sayings and phrases in Shakespeare have been repeated ad infinitum so that they have become cliches, though they certainly weren't at the time. This is just one of the many things about the Bard to be found in Living with Shakespeare, a collection of essays about what Shakespeare meant to various actors, writers, and directors edited by Susannah Carson.

Some of the writers include Ben Kingsley, James Earl Jones, James Franco, Camille Paglia, and Julie Taymor. James Franco wrote about River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho. This movie was based on an Orson Welles film, Chimes at Midnight, that was based on Shakespeare's Henry IV, parts I and 2. Chimes focuses on the character of Falstaff and the carousing of Prince Hal. In Idaho Keanu Reeves plays the Prince Hal character, and River plays a minor character from the original play, but James Franco got the original footage from director Gus Van Sant and re-edited it focusing on River, as it was his last great role before his fatal overdose. It was called My Own Private River. Though this essay goes off on a slight tangent it nonetheless illustrates a project that attempts to cast Shakespeare in a modern context.

Most of the other essays stuck much closer to the subject. A lot of actors reflected back on what a challenge it was to play Hamlet, and other famous roles. Antony Sher spoke on the language, and how it was a challenge for him coming from South Africa. Though he studied at the Royal Shakespeare Company for many years and played many of the great roles, he had to overcome feelings of inadequacy because he wasn't British. Camille Paglia, who often likes to stir controversy for its own sake, stuck close to the point. She spoke about the Language, Action, and Politics of the plays. Speaking of controversy, she did quickly mention the ongoing argument over whether Shakespeare actually wrote the plays but came out on the side that he did, as the way it was written it would have to be by an actor quite familiar with stagecraft.

This is a very interesting book for people who are interested in Shakespeare. It is the next best thing to reading, or even better, seeing a production of a Shakespeare play.