On Shakespeare and The Search For Aliens
In the Carl Sagan story, Contact, a message being relayed from space is received through the Very Large Array radio telescopes.
At first the scientists believed that the pulses were just numbers. Then an engineer pointed out that behind the pulses, at a higher frequency, more information was being sent. I’m going to get to Shakespeare, I promise.
Then, later still, a visual signal is discovered – hidden within the original ‘static’ of the signal. Layer upon layer of bits and code, zeroes and ones, all being pumped through space, all to be translated and understood. A message from another time.
Eleanor Arroway (played wonderfully by Jodie Foster in the film) struggles to explain what this message means, over the tumult of ‘expert opinion’. Everyone thinks they know the answer. But – without the ‘primer’, the key to the message – nobody can really know.
Then S.R. Haddon, a recluse engineer, unearths the primer – it was hidden inside the message all along. (01:03:10 or Chapter 19 on the DVD). Part of the message being sent is the key to it all. Stunning. Simple
How does this relate to Shakespeare?
In one sense, to a young spotty teenager reading Romeo & Juliet at school, the words and works of William Shakespeare are exactly like the radio pulse being sent from the late-sixteenth century Theatres of London. It can be considered noise. Much like any other ‘play’ on the school curriculum.
And through my adolescence, this is what it remained. Until I read the works of Ben Crystal. My, S.R. Haddon, if you like. His work “Shakespeare On Toast” showed me the ‘primer’. By the time I was old enough to play a part in an amateur production of Macbeth, it was like being able to speak to the Bard himself.
Crystal showed me that the key to understanding the plays lies within the text itself. All along, the only decoder I needed was sat there, staring me in the face, right on the page.
The directions, the phrasing, the characterisation. All of it. All in the language, the pacing of the pentameter, the gaps in the pentameter. What a delicious discovery that was. Suddenly, the spotty teenager and the angst-ridden amateur actor, able to hear the whispers of Will in our ear as we read, as we stride in from the wings and stand centre-stage.
Reading Shakespeare anew and armed with this knowledge is like looking up into space and seeing the constellations all lined up in the form of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy.
So from the very depths of my heart I would like to wish William Shakespeare a very happy birthday and to Ben Crystal, a thank you, for showing me the primer.
To read more about how William Shakespeare has affected the lives of others, please go to : http://www.birthday2011.bloggingshakespeare.com/ and socialise the link as well.
Many, many thanks,
