In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Shakespeare writes a play within a play. A motley crew of Athenian working men assemble to rehearse a play to be performed before the Duke of Athens on his wedding day. The play calls for one man to carry a sword, and they decide to include a prologue saying that no one is injured by the sword ‘in case ‘the ladies be a’feared.’ For the same reason the man inside the lion must poke his head out and reassure the audience that he is not really a lion, but Snug the joiner.
Fast forward four hundred years and another Shakespearean play is at The Globe theatre in London. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a love story with a tragic ending. Ola Ince,the director, has thought it necessary to issue theatregoers with a sheet of reassurances; that the blood is fake, the fights are not real, and the lovers do not die. Is this what our urbanised, ‘woke’ society has brought us to? Shakespeare was making a rough joke; Ola Ince is deadly serious.
Well, not ‘deadly’ in the sense that anyone is actually dead you understand. The days when mourners filed past an open coffin are long gone. Our sensibilities must be protected. Is this a sensible approach to the world around us? I find it hard to believe that it is.
Here at Staunton we are involved with farmers and livestock farming. As such we see more of death than most, putting down sick animals, taking others to the slaughterhouse. But all of us will encounter death, any of us can find ourselves on the scene of a bad car accident; if we shield ourselves from the illusion, how will the reality hit us? I would love the opportunity of another trip to the Globe theatre, and no, I won’t be needing the sheet of comforting advice.