William Shakespeare breathed life into Prince Hal and Marc Antony when he portrayed them in his plays.\u00a0 He took some historical accounts and turned them into\u2026?\u00a0 Into what?\u00a0 Well, into dramatic personae.\u00a0 They joined Oedipus and Socrates and all the other characters that we know from the drama.\u00a0 And not that the characters are historically accurate; they\u2019re not.\u00a0 They\u2019re the invention of the playwright.\u00a0 But they\u2019re better than accurate.\u00a0 They\u2019re vivid.\u00a0 Alive.\u00a0 We know them.\u00a0 We know them better than we know any real personalities from history or even the news of the day.\u00a0 So, in a way they\u2019re immortal.\u00a0 Millions and millions of human beings have watched and heard and read the words spoken by Hamlet and Falstaff and Macbeth.\u00a0 They\u2019ve thought about the words, the intonation, the feelings the characters portrayed to understand what the characters were feeling and thinking.\u00a0 This is a level of existence that otherwise only occurs for most people within the confines of their own family.\u00a0 And in fact, rarely even there.\u00a0 Which of us is so witty or profound or emotional that the day-to-day dialog we share with our spouses or children or friends does more than just bounce off of their consciousness?\u00a0 It\u2019s almost background noise in a way.\u00a0 It\u2019s only in moments of crisis or discussions about important matters that we choose our words carefully and fully listen to what is being said.<\/p>\n
Outside of drama we rarely listen with our full attention to what people around us say.\u00a0 Maybe during times of crisis.\u00a0 I remember very clearly after September 11th<\/sup> 2001 that Bush gave a few very carful and important speeches and I remember that I was glad that his rhetoric wasn\u2019t too flowery.\u00a0 It was more about retribution and I was glad for it.\u00a0 But that was an exception.\u00a0 Most of what gets said by talking heads in the news goes in one ear and out the other and rightly so.<\/p>\n But it makes you think.<\/p>\n Who will be the next Shakespeare?\u00a0 When will we get another dramatic poet of his stature?\u00a0 And who will he write about?\u00a0 I was thinking, \u201cWill someone write a play called Josef Stalin or FDR or Donald Trump?\u201d\u00a0 It could happen.\u00a0 These were men who defined their times.\u00a0 If a great poet came along and breathed life into the character and made the story compelling future readers and viewers would be mesmerized by scenes where these characters mouthed the words that the author heard in his soul.<\/p>\n Of course, it might be a hundred years from now or even a couple of thousand.\u00a0 Shakespeare\u2019s closest foray into recent history was one of his last plays, \u201cHenry the Eighth\u201d and it was hardly in line with his greater works.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s doubtful he wrote most of it.\u00a0 If an audience a thousand years from now watches (or however entertainment is sensed at that point) about Donald Trump it\u2019s doubtful that the real Trump will shine through at all.\u00a0 Only a comic genius, a futuristic Aristophanes could capture the bombast and swagger that \u201cThe Donald\u201d provides in all of his speeches and interviews.\u00a0 And if he did manage to capture that spirit would the audiences (especially the critics) reject it as too over the top and exaggerated?\u00a0 They probably would.\u00a0 But I\u2019d go see the show on the first night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" William Shakespeare breathed life into Prince Hal and Marc Antony when he portrayed them in his plays.\u00a0 He took some historical accounts and turned them<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2510,2511,6],"tags":[880,295,16],"class_list":["post-32888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-literature","category-poetry","category-trump","tag-elizabethan-drama","tag-shakespeare","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n