shakespeare and patrick stewart and groff

2024-04-06

Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were at the playhouse with the other players, lounging around and hanging out before that evening’s show. Last night was opening night and Ian had performed with the troop as a special guest. Tonight, the second night, was Patrick’s turn.

I was at the computer. I had just finished typesetting the works of Shakespeare in groff and had run off a test print. It looked almost perfect. Only the page footers needed a little bit of tweaking.

Just then the wind gusted and blew open the back door and, then finding the path of least resistance through the room, also the door to the screened in side porch. I went to close the back door, and Patrick appeared at my side. It was of some concern that the door had opened because there was someone or something that we were trying to keep out. More alarming was the fact that the door had been locked. In fact, the dead bolt was still engaged, protruding from the mechanism. I closed the door and relocked it.

Patrick admitted that he was not feeling very well and was somewhat dreading that evening’s performance. I asked him what he wanted to do about it, and he answered that he intended to do his very best.

He quoted a passage from Shakespeare to me and asked what I thought it meant. It was something about how a scholar had spent so much time reading over old texts, but never truly understood them until he had gone through them.

I took it to mean that great truths and great lessons must be earned through lived experience. One must invest time and effort and often pain in order to truly understand them.

And yet it is possible to learn these lessons and truths through literature, such as the words of the bard, but only through great empathy. By feeling the breeze of the words on your face, and feeling the hard earth of the words under your feet. By not passively letting the words pass over you, but by actively passing through them yourself. And the play, the stage, is an ideal medium for such immersion and such discovery.