No Longer a Shakespeare Scholar

Twenty-five years ago I was, in the small world of the University of Oregon's English Graduate Program, a promising scholar of Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama in England. For several ensuing years, I read Shakespeare scholarship, studied Shakespeare under terrific professors, attended a few national and international conferences of Shakespeare scholars. I became a teacher of Shakespeare at Whitworth College, the University of Oregon, and Lane Community College.

To me, what has marked much of my study, my attempts at writing, and my teaching during these past twenty-five years has been a lack of immediacy in my experience with Shakespeare.

My experience with his plays became so heavily guided or mediated by the writings of scholars and the instruction of my professors, that I often found myself wondering whether I was really working with Shakespeare's plays or if I was experiencing the writing about his plays come to life.

I went to many many performances of Shakespeare's plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. Often, in watching the performances, my mind was so crowded by interpretations I had read of the plays, that I came to the performances with fixed ideas of what the plays ought to convey. For example, when I went to the play *Othello*, I had a fixed idea, largely formed by reading scholarship, of who the character Othello ought to be and had trouble enjoying portrayals that did not fit with my preconceived ideas.

I had some confidence in these preconceptions because they had the stamp of scholarship on them.

I am playing a very small role in *Othello* right now. I am watching more than acting. I am having a glorious experience. Because I have not been reading much *Othello* scholarship and because what I have read has receded from my immediate consciousness, I am having this unusual and most welcome experience of having this play come alive as if I've never seen or studied it before.

I have lost any preconceived notion of who or what the character Othello ought to be. Therefore, as I see Will, our production's Othello, develop this character, I'm seeing an Othello I've never really imagined before come to life. I can't be specific right now, but I'm seeing a whole different physical Othello, an Othello with mannerisms, facial expressions, emotional qualities at particular times in the play I have never thought about before.

It is exhilirating to experience this learning about Othello come from a live embodiment of this character as Will brings him alive. Will is reading lines in ways I've never heard them. I'm hearing words, lines, passages in ways I've never heard them.

When I was a scholar, I would have assessed Will's creation of this character based on what I'd read. Now, since I've resigned my scholarly pursuits, I am not assessing. I am seeing and enjoying an Othello come to life as Will creates him. It's a new Othello. I'm not measuring this Othello against a literary understanding of the character. I am enjoying him as he emerges, accepting him just as Will creates him.

In other words, I'm having a more immediate experience with this character and with this play than I ever did when I studied it in my office. I'm not thinking of the character or the play in terms of a class essay or in terms of interpreting the character or the play for a class of students. I'm simply experiencing the wonder of this complex creation of Shakespeare and Will.

I find it very hard to teach Shakespeare as literature any more. It has been the lifeblood of my professional life, and it seems an insufficient undertaking to me. I want to be a part of the immediate life of these plays and that occurs in performance, in being a part of seeing the play's production come alive in every aspect, from the boards and nails to the moving bodies creating action.

Maybe I'll get scholarly again with Shakespeare. I don't know. But, for now, I want to learn more about these plays from being a part of plays being produced and from acting. It's more immediate. It's more unpredictable. It's more risky. It is, in the end, for me, more alive.