A THEATRE FOR EVERY AGE By Mark Olshaker Every age, it is said, gets the <strong>Shakespeare</strong> it deserves. As James Shapiro so eloquently points out in <strong>Shakespeare</strong>: The King’s Man, that was true even during <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s lifetime, as his distinction between the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I demonstrate. The theatre helped Jacobean audiences of all classes interpret and make sense of the dynamic and uncertain times in which they lived, learning to navigate anew during the reign of an unpredictable Scottish king whose mother had been executed by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, less than 20 years before. No longer would <strong>Shakespeare</strong> write the effervescent comedies of the Elizabethan years. His Jacobean comedies were dark and unsettling, dealing with such dangerous contemporary topics as betrayal, revenge, sexual exploitation, and the legitimacy of rule. Professor Shapiro tells us that an “Elizabethan <strong>Shakespeare</strong>” could not have written a tragicomedy like Measure for Measure. Like the playwright’s Jacobean tragedies, his comedies would mirror a different era, offering profound insights into the ambiguities of the human condition. Examples of theatre reflecting society and its values can be found in every age. When Oliver Cromwell’s Puritans overthrew King Charles I, they banned all plays as sordid and decadent. Following Cromwell’s death in 1658 and the restoration of the monarchy two years later under Charles II, theatres reopened and a new generation of playwrights reflected the views and energy of the day. Relieved of the yoke of the Puritan Revolution’s enforced public piety, audiences wanted to laugh. Restoration comedies such as William Wycherley’s The Country Wife and William Congreve’s The Way of the World gave them an outlet to delight in the foibles and strained manners of a high society they both envied and secretly mocked. During this more sexually open period, women’s roles were played for the first time by actual women, rather than men and boys. Subsequent decades saw the beginnings of a new type of feel-good theatre, but one that reflected a society preoccupied with making things “right” and proper. This impulse reached its preposterous nadir in 1681 with Nahum Tate’s rewriting of King Lear. Tate removed the Fool and his acerbic social commentary and substituted a new, upbeat conclusion to <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s tragedy. In Tate’s version, Cordelia doesn’t die. Instead, she marries Edgar and they live happily ever after—a model of how audiences were expected to live their own lives. In the Victorian period, a newly industrialized and increasingly powerful Britain was displaying its prowess with stage spectacles, musical extravaganzas, and elaborate comic operas. As the 19th century progressed, Britain’s rather straight-laced society grew to favor domestic comedies and sentimental dramas with elements of realism, like Arthur Wing Pinero’s Trelawney of the “Wells.” Contrast this with the “angry young men” of London’s Royal Court Theatre in the late 1950s, where John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger stunned playgoers with its frank depiction of middle-class life and frustrations in the years following World War II. Nowhere, perhaps, does the relationship between theatre and society emerge more clearly than in comparing productions of the same <strong>Shakespeare</strong>an plays in two distinct eras. For a vivid demonstration, we can thank Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh, each of whom committed memorable versions of Henry V and Hamlet to film. Olivier’s Henry V, produced during World War II as a morale booster, portrays a resolute and determined king, rallying the population in a righteous cause against a formidable enemy. The beautiful film attempts something midway between stage and screen. It begins with a staging in <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Globe, but when Henry’s army reaches France, the movie transports us to a semi-realistic, semi-storybook setting. Branagh’s 1989 film is a Thatcher-era, post-Falklands War meditation on 1 <strong>Shakespeare</strong> -Kings Man_booklet_12_17.indd 2-3 12/17/12 5:27 PM