THE OXFORD SHAKESPEARE: Pericles [Paperback]

Aside from people who just plain hate Shakespeare (and I don't get them at ALL), there are two types of Shakespeare Snobs. 1. The ones who think Shakespeare couldn't have written his plays because he wasn't born to nobility. These people are idiots. 2. The ones who idolize Shakespeare to the point where, if they don't like one of his plays, He Obviously Couldn't Have Written It -- he is incapable of writing something they don't like. Um... right. Let's apply this rationale to a latter day artist: since Charlie Chaplin made "The Gold Rush", he obviously had nothing to do with "A King in New York."

Geniuses grow and change with everything they do. The Beatles of "A Hard Day's Night" are not the Beatles of "A Day in the Life." Shakespeare spent his career shifting with the tides of what was Currently Popular. If he had lived in the mid 1970's, he would have followed a "Five Easy Pieces" with a "Star Wars". He rolled with the flow, but stamped his own creativity on every work. "Pericles" and the other later romances were written because that's what the current popular genre was. Box office dictated form; artistry dictated content.

Having recently read "Pericles", I have to say that it's one of the best, wackiest plays ever written. (I also think "Measure for Measure" is meant to be darkly funny, not brooding and angsty; but that's just me.) "Pericles" is what would happen if the writer of the Hee Haw "Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me" song had decided to make a Hope and Crosby Road picture. Unlike Shakespeare's tragic heroes and their Fatal Flaws, Pericles is just a poor schmuck (who happens to be a king) upon whom Murphy's Law comes down like a 50 pound hammer. EVERYTHING happens to this poor guy; your jaw drops at his second or third consecutive shipwreck.

The opening scene alone is worth the price of admission. Pericles has to guess the answer to the riddle of a very John Cleesian king. If he guesses right, he marries the princess. If he guesses wrong, he dies. Unfortunately, he guesses the right answer -- that the king is screwing his own daughter -- and he can't possibly say it out loud. He'll be killed if he answers and killed if he doesn't. It's a very Ralph Kramden hummena-hummena-hummena moment.

And the Act IV brothel scenes, where Pericles' daughter Marina has been sold into prostitution, are among the funniest scenes Shakespeare ever wrote. She doesn't just hold onto her virginity -- every male who tries to do her is coverted to the path of righteousness and the brothel is losing its shirt.

Nevertheless, you feel for the characters even while laughing at the outlandish sheer enormity of each new disaster; Bambi getting killed isn't funny. Bambi getting squashed by Godzilla is hysterical. The reconciliation scene is one of Shakespeare's most affecting.

If you like quirkiness, this is a wonderful play.

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review  5.0 out of 5 stars