To Dine, or not to Dine? by Jenna

To Dine, or not to Dine? by Jenna - February 2016 Scholarship Essay

Were it possible, William Shakespeare and I would sit down for tea and dinner while discussing the complexities and intentions of his many plays.
As a theatre buff, Shakespeare is a name I couldn’t go one day without hearing. The man has entire acting companies dedicated to only performing his work. During my dinner with the most iconic playwright in the world, we’d talk about some of my favorite plays; Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, and of course, the classic Romeo and Juliet.
I’d particularly want to ask him a few questions I’ve been theorizing about for a while. Over a cup of tea, I’d inquire about the famous, and my personal favorite, character of Puck (or Robin Goodfellow) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Puck is a mischievous faerie whose antics are the main source of drama in this play. While Shakespeare gives a description of Puck’s personality in the script, we are never given a physical description. Of the six productions of this play I’ve seen, Puck has been portrayed in so many different ways; from a white, winged and flower-covered faerie, to a dark green horned beast. While I understand part of the fun of playing this character has become getting creative with the way one imagines him to look, I’d love to know Shakespeare image of the character he created. I tend to lean towards a darker, scarier version, but this dinner would surely clear things up for me.
Coming from a theatre background, the ‘Macbeth’ superstition has been drilled into my head. The supposedly cursed play title is not to be said during any production of any play or things are bound to go wrong. What would be William Shakespeare’s thoughts on this? Would he scoff at the idea that one of is plays is cursed, or would he find this amusing, because surely the man that wrote plays about faeries, ghosts, and conversations with skulls had an odd sense of humor.
I’d wait until we began dessert to approach a touchier subject. On occasion, I hear about the theories that William Shakespeare was not the author of all his plays. Francis Bacon and an Earl of Oxford have been hypothesized as possible authors of Shakespeare’s works. “Now,” I’d tell him, “while I don’t believe these theories, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the suggestion that your work is not your own.” I can only hope I wouldn’t offend him with this inquiry, and we’d spend the rest of our time having dessert laughing while we discredit Mr. Bacon, and the Earl of Oxford.
There is really no other choice for who I would have dinner with. Shakespeare has influenced the field of theatre more than any one person. Our dinner would be filled with questions about his initial intentions for all his characters and plays, while I tried to subtly slide in quotes from Hamlet. O Shakespeare! Wherefore art thou Shakespeare?