I fell in love with Shakespeare at 11 years old.
I followed along line-by-line to Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet from my mom’s pristine blue-bound copy of The Complete Works of William Shakesepare. The fact that I could place my finger on the small, 2-column text and recite the lines along with the neon-shrouded characters on screen exploded my understanding of literature.
It would be years before I understood the relieved triumph in my mom’s eyes at that moment.
I wasn’t new to live performance.
I grew up backstage with magicians, clowns, ballerinas, and, most frequently, musicians. But this was something different.
My first on-stage experience came at 3 years old. A year of ballet lessons at the park district culminated in a performance of a beloved story acted out by 3-7 year olds. We performed Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Beauty & the Beast, The Jungle Book, and many other borderline copyright infringements.
My first performance was as a flamingo in Alice in Wonderland. Half the photos of the event show me talking at the other kids in my class. Not yet appreciating the implication within The Show Must Go On, and dwelling on the question We went over this twenty times in class, how do you not remember the steps?
The intervening years saw ballet, tap, jazz, modern, orchestra, and band performances. All this to say I understood the idea of a performance order. Of a plan before it all went on stage.
But this is my first memory of a script. (Or at least one that wasn’t a children’s summer camp version of The Wizard of Oz.)
This was literature.
The actor’s inflection pushing love and loss into every word. The cadence emoting more than the text itself. A new form of music that required a different kind of concentration.
I floated on waves of iambic pentameter uttered by the most beautiful caricatures of 90s luxury and exuberance. Ears and eyes dazzled into a hypnotic trance.
There were words I didn’t understand. References I had no context for. Character motivations that meant nothing to me beyond how their scene partners reacted.
But it didn’t matter. I could follow it. On my own. With the largest book in our household spread open on the carpet in front of me.
Mom, they cut out a scene!
Wait…no. They just mixed up the lines. Why would they do that?
Did you see the name of the gun is Sword? That’s so cool.
So it began.
I was hooked in a way that can only happen when you’re 11 and feel no resistance to falling completely into something new.
One day laying on the front room floor with a giant tome, legs kicking behind me to stay off the scratchy carpet, watching the 90s heartthrob fall in love through a fish tank was the origin.
It snowballed from there.
Copies of the annotated Norton Shakespeare Collections.
Birthday gift tickets to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
Creating my first email address as a reference to an obscure line.
Memorizing all of Romeo and Juliet Act II Scene ii and then feeling put out that I wasn’t asked to read aloud in 9th grade English when we got to that scene.
Renting every version of every play that the library had on VHS.
Composing a “missing scene” for Much Ado About Nothing for AP English.
Learning to tolerate Kenneth Branagh.
Writing an undergraduate thesis that required research at the Folger Shakspeare Library in DC (something they typically reserve for graduate students).
Making a pilgrimage to Stratford Upon Avon to view the origins of the genius.
Having very strong feelings about the question of authorship (I vehemently do not care. I love the words and whoever wrote them was brilliant).
Attending as many performances at the Globe as a groundling as I could fit into my 1 month study abroad in London.
A deep, abiding obsession with MacBeth.
Consistent re-watching of Slings + Arrows.
Crying on the walk home after getting to hold a copy of the First Folio in my hands during my masters program.
Splurging on tickets to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform on my honeymoon (with a thankfully good sport of a spouse).
Losing a corner of my heart that can never be overwritten.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate. But, more than that, I was driven to make all these things happen. Obsessively and with a fervor that could not be denied. My poor loved ones could be considered enablers by addiction standards, but thankfully the Bard’s works aren’t legally considered illicit.
And it all began because of my mom.
She eventually told me that she’d grown up intimidated and confused by Shakespeare. She feared passing that on to me.
In that moment she couldn’t have known of the lifelong obsession that occasionally bordered on financial-burden that she had set in motion.
She’d seen her happy, book-loving daughter discovering a new interest – a triumph for any parent.
Perhaps she’d glimpsed her way in. That she would have personal access to someone so enmeshed in the texts that any play could be explained upon request. Someone to ask questions to during intermission. Someone to make the complex language accessible within the family lingo.
Whatever she saw, I’m grateful. There are few other constants I’ve had for 25+ years.
When I inadvertently pull away or take a break, coming back is that much sweeter. Sinking back into the text pulls out a dormant beast. It roars back to life, longing for more and placated the more it consumes.
“Words, words, words” (Hamlet, Act II, Scene ii).
The plays are a distant friend. A lover that stays a spell and leaves imperceptibly, modern life pressuring their departure. Yet they always return just when I need them. Breathing life into me when the world becomes dreary.
So much of my existence is entwined in these words that I have no doubt I’d not be the same person without them.
“I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.” (Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV, Scene i)
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