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Shakespeare's Puck Pays Us a Visit 4/23/2016 7:22:10 AM
Some months ago, I threw away a copy of Shakespeare's plays I'd had since high school days because the cover had come off and some pages were missing. I went to The Book Exchange in Toronto's West End to look for a replacement. I bought a paperback copy of the Arden Shakespeare, and since it has no notes, I also picked up a reference work on Shakespeare's life and works.
Now, this is the week of his birthday. No one seems to know the exact date, but his baptism took place on April 26, 1564. This year is the 452nd since his birth, then, and this year we also note the 400th anniversary of his death. Some people living now will observe his 500th birthday in 2164. That should be a great occasion, for his plays will last as long as language does.
I wished to commemorate the role that Shakespeare's work has played in the reading and theatre-following parts of my life. What could I possibly say that hasn't already been said many times? I thought and thought again and came up with this:
Supposing one of Shakespeare's characters came to our world today. What would he or she say? Take Puck, for example, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", a fairy creature, an ambiguous character, part boyish prankster and part minor devil. I picture him talking to you and me.
"I suppose you think I'm amazed at the differences between your world and the world the way it was when Shakespeare wrote his play about me. You have more machines than we did then and more knowledge and more ways of getting around -- unless you're like me, which I doubt -- than people in the old days did. Plus., you have electricity, which I love to play around with. Shakespeare came at the start of a great world-wide movement that's still going on and hasn't reached its high-point yet.
"These developments interest me, but don't think I'm amazed. You see, I was involved in bringing them about and they'll keep going till I say stop. I convinced Oberon, our king, to make me his representative to human life and to appoint me chief engineer of what you call progress.So here it is, and here I am. There's more to come, for I have labs and studios all over your world and my assistants are guiding scads of teams of human beings.
"Now, I don't want Oberon to find out what I'm telling you, because he'll say I'm lying and punish me. He'll blame me for creating confusion and causing anxiety and scold me for messing up a hundred times. He'll send me to I don't know where but some place where there's no humanity for me to help and guide.
"My other point is that Shakespeare got many things right -- about people, about human life, about me. The characters he created or adapted and the situations he put them in or reworked are the products of a first-class creative ability.But you know that.
"Did he have a fault? He never acknowledged the huge contribution I made to his work: plays by Puck and Shakespeare.
"I've got to scoot before Oberon catches me. What I want to say is that the plays of my helper Shakespeare and me still have a long time to go. So I'm off -- to hide in one of our other plays so Oberon will never find me."
So much for Puck. Many other voices and points of view abide in Shakespeare's work, thank God, and generations upon generations will continue to reap the benefits.
