SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

William Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest writer of all time, once

wrote, "All the world's a stage." (As You Like It). His

unerringly poetic and philosophical lines, ringing in iambic

pentameter, call up compelling historical, personal, philosophical and

psychological issues. The Bard evokes drama and suspense by shining a

light and looking at the basics of the human condition through a

magnifying glass. When watching his plays we are transcendent, a

presence above the mortal fray. We are forced to look at aspects of

everyday life we would rather not know about, and supply our own

answers the questions he asks. He draws us like a magnet to the dark

and tragic side.

For many Shakespeare lovers, no play of his is so heartrendingly

tragic as the story of Romeo and Juliet. It is shown again and again

on the stage, and has been adapted to modern times. ("West Side

Story") The story reminds us of our first love and how it was lost,

and evokes the tensions between family loyalty and one's own heart's

desire. That first heartbreak, a little death, is in us all. While

we want Romeo and Juliet to get married and live happily ever after,

it is not to be. Life is tragic.

Tom Stoppard is the playwright and screen writer who years ago came up

with the original play-about-a-play, a spin-off of

Shakespeare's Hamlet titled "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Are Dead." Some purists didn't like it much, but most critics thought

the play was great. Stoppard's gift is that he knows his way in and

out of Hamlet, such that he can create a whole new play from the

standpoint of two relatively insignificant characters: Rosencrantz and

Guildenstern.

In the original Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Hamlet's

friends and classmates, called to the court by the new‚ly crowned king,

brother to Hamlet's dead father, who needs spies to determine Hamlet's

intentions. The prince knows that his old friends are acting as

instruments of the king and cold-bloodedly arranges for their deaths.

(A sharp contrast to Hamlet's inability to kill the king as his

father's ghost has commanded.)

In Stoppard's play we see the hapless victims try every which way to

avoid their fate, which is Shakespeare's written word. Stoppard shows

us how people think and feel when they realize that they are not long

for this world, caught up in a mortal enterprise. (Shakespeare's

"mortal coil") So are we all! Stoppard skillfully reminds us of the

original Hamlet, while creating a play-within-a-play, one of

Shakespeare's own wonderful devices.

Stoppard has done it again, to perhaps an even deeper level, with

"Shakespeare in Love." He brings us to the Elizabethan era and to

Ó young Shakespeare himself, who is in the process of writing "Romeo and

Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter." (A ridiculous title and ungainly plot,

but that is how great plays get started). As the

motion picture begins, we see a torture scene in which a local theater

owner has his feet held to the fire, literally, by his angry

creditors. Fearing further torture, he commissions the

play. He needs a winner to pay off the debt and be free. Stoppard's

fantasy is that this was the origin of the Shakespeare play: the

theater owner exhorts a reluctant Shakespeare and a

traveling acting group, similar to the one in Hamlet, to put on this

play in his theater. We see the attitudes and manners of the actors at

the time, and they are believable: very human, very Shakespeare.

In those days women were not allowed to act on the stage. Female

roles were played by boys or high-voiced,diminutive men. Part of the

fun of êthis 'deception' is that the audience knows what is going on,

but the players act as if they do not.

The young Shakespeare is entranced with a young noblewoman, Viola, who

aspires to act. Unknown to Shakespeare, she disguises herself as a

boy, and wins the part of Romeo. On stage, Shakespeare does not

recognize her, while off stage we see her through his eyes as the

most spectacularly beautiful specimen of femininity that a man ever

saw in all eternity. As they fall in love, his words echo with

tenderness and delicacy, poetry and passion. Their love story becomes

the play, whcih is transformed from "Romeo and Ethel" to "Romeo and

Juliet" Just as the actors act one scene while Shakespeare is writing

the next, the play itself mirrors their real romance. Scenes from the

original Romeo and Juliet are re-created, in the mo@vie, as real events

between Shakespeare and Viola, such as the balcony scene and their

final good-bye. In they end, like Romeo and Juliet, they are parted.

This particular tragedy never ceases to move us profoundly.

We remember the original play and cannot help but enjoy the play about

the play, because we are not only reminded of the classic, but get an

expert perspective from a modern playwright, one who is deeply devoted to

Shakespeare while offering us a modern version. We are enthralled as we enter

Stoppard's fantasy and see the play actually written, produced, rehearsed and

acted. Just think, it could have been this way. Stoppard bridges the centuries

and highlights the universals which go deep and never die.

If Shakespeare in Love wins most of the Academy Awards, it will be no

surprise.

Dr. Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and he welcomes comments and questions at his e-mail address: hyperlink and website- victorbloom.com