More Suggestions: Meditation #3

Subject: More Suggestions for Meditation #3

Shakespeare in Love is neither a true story nor does it pretend to be true. While the visual design of the film constructs authenticity through valid research, neither the dialogue nor the plot make much pretense to accuracy or historical veracity. On the other hand, like many experiences in the theatre, the film manages (for some) to present a story that feels true - or as if it should somehow be true. Within the film itself, the characters talk about whether poetry - specifically dramatic poetry, enacted on a stage - can describe truth, specifically about love. Is this accomplished? Does the story told by the tragedy Romeo and Juliet, or Shakespeare in Love, a comedy which very carefully parallels that tragedy's plot, manage to be true ... even if it is historically, or literally, false?

Likewise, Shakespeare in Love manages to capture many truths about theatre and the business of theatre despite the fact that, as history, it's a manufactured fantasy. What truths might these be?

To put this another way: our textbook, The Creative Spirit, demonstrates how societies use theatre and ritual as a means of reflecting on, celebrating, perpetuating, or questioning the myths that form the fabric of those societies. A myth is often described as a story that isn't real, used to explain the unexplainable. Another way to describe a myth is as a story whose truth is unimportant - whose veracity is irrelevant, because the story (which, like any and every play, makes no claim to be actually real) attempts to describe or explore something cannot be proven, seen, or demonstrated in reality. In these terms, what sort of myth does Shakespeare in Love provide, and how is it useful?

Consider connecting the film with the readings from the text. How is the mythmaking at work in this film different from (or the same as) the mythmaking and social reflection in play in theatre, as described by Arnold?

Consider other connections to the reading from the text. One highly significant question is the role of women in theatre. In Shakespeare's day, it was an unquestioned custom - not even a written law - that women should not appear on stage. What do you make of this, and how the film deals with this cultural convention? How does the history of women in theatre affect our reading of it, or its value?