To me, Shakespeare is a bit of a touchy subject in the theatre industry. I believe Shakespeare's plays to be the most challenging in terms of language. When you have challenging language, then understanding the plot and topics will become a challenge as well. It's like a chain. If you don't understand it from the start, it makes things hard later on and people tend to give up on it. Regardless of all of this, I believe Shakespeare is important in the sense that it's where true theatre started. William Shakespeare is a name everyone knows regardless of whether you enjoy his works or not.
Many high schools or colleges put on at least one Shakespeare play every few years and I like that. I think it's important to expose students to plays that are a bit more challenging than they used to be. Of course. it's not easy to understand these plays but then think about the people who act in those plays. When acting, you have to understand your character and not only that, you need to completely know everything going on around you as well. So to understand the script (剧本) is one thing. but to act in a Shakespeare play is a whole another thing. How about memorizing the lines? That's one of the hardest things actors have to get through. It is such heightened language that it's almost like learning a foreign language. Shakespeare is tough and that's what I think I love it the most. The challenge is understanding. Once you have that then you have room to play with it.
Therefore, if people walked into a Shakespeare play with more of an open mind, their experience would be so much better. There is a large amount of exploration and discovery in his plays and the experience can be really satisfying. It's hard stuff, but it's fascinating and we should be embracing it.
