You may be aware of my fondness for Tony Tanner on Shakespeare.  He was taught by Philip Brockbank.  Brockbank wrote a book Players of Shakespeare.  RSC leaders talk of some great characters.  There is a follow up. 

The book is immensely instructive.  Shakespeare was in business to entertain.  This is from the people who do the entertainment.  Why have not we seen it before?

I will leave it to the Melbourne Shakespeare Society to look at some characters in detail, but here are some morsels.

Brockbank:

The life of a part, as distinct from its significance, is the prime responsibility of the actor, and actors have traditionally been suspicious of theory or analysis, ascribing the creation of character in performance to decisions instinctively made, perceptions unconsciously arrived at, fine discriminations mysteriously achieved.  ‘Analysis,’ said Michael Redgrave, ‘does not come easily….’

So it is in my profession – and we might wonder why actors do not make more of theirs.  But suspicion of analysis dos not mean not being ruled by the text – and studying it with religious zeal.

Patrick Stewart on Shylock:

Shylock and his kind are outsiders, strangers, feared and hated for being different.  They belong to the world’s minorities.  They are, as the laws of Venice state, alien, stamped by that world to be always vulnerable and at risk; therefore survival is paramount….But however important Jewishness and antisemitism are in the play, they are secondary to the consideration of Shylock the man; unhappy, unloved, lonely, frightened and angry….Shakespeare created a portrait of an outsider who happened to be a Jew.

When Donald Sinden was offered the part of Malvolio, he said the part was tragic.  His director thanked God.  At the end of his essay, Sinden says suicide is the only option for Malvolio.  Comedy often entails cruelty.

Michael Pennington sees Hamlet as born in the wrong time and place:

…alongside the evident generosity and grace in the man, there was now a strong current of violence, particularly toward the women in his life, aggravated by a sense of betrayal , and sadly misdirected towards them rather than toward his real enemy….A deep concern for the past runs through him and he never speaks of the future.

The final essay is by David Suchet on Caliban.  Suchet was obviously ferociously bright and a keen analyst of the text.  Caliban is seen as less than human and rudely dispossessed of his native land by someone of superior force.  Empire builders saw the natives as monsters.  Suchet is guided not just by the language, but its sound.

This discovery led to my playing Caliban at times dangerous and at times childish, but at all times totally spontaneous… Caliban has learned that being obedient he will be safe.  But when anybody else should ever come to his island again, he certainly will not even try to befriend them – he will kill on sight.

Well, as Babe Ruth said, when he had knocked one into the bleachers – ‘How do you like them apples?’

The insight of this playwright into us is endless.

And it is with us here now.