“My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, nor to be seen: my crown is called content, a crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.”
- William Shakespeare; Henry VI, Part 3, Act III, Scene 1
Modern critics dismiss Shakespeare as a product of his times, cackling at his insistence on using quill and paper when earlier bards committed their works to memory. Long before snapping and toking took hold of humanity like an anaconda looking for warmth, Willie Boy realized the secret to immortality. It was, as countless strategists hunched over their keyboards examining oodles of data know, all about content creation. Output trumps input. Shakespeare wrote more because that was his only way of controlling the narrative. His crown was his content, okay?
His predecessors, peers and influences tried to match the man’s oeuvre, but nearly all, with the one possible exception of L. Ron Hubbard, fell considerably short. Will didn’t worry whether or not his writing was good, and like Woody Allen today, he was only concerned with the next project. ADD was not a thing in the 16th century, because if it were, Bill would’ve been diagnosed with a terrible case of a wandering mind. What else explains the need to write three plays about Henry the VI? Who?
Guys like Marlowe spent years toiling over every syllable of Doctor Faustus when Billy Baby was releasing play after play, bludgeoning his competition into submission. Like a pregnant dog, there was hardly a limit to his creative production. He was Sandler before Sandler, mastering comedy and tragedy. Only he did it all without the use of false teeth. A person could study Shakespeare’s works for an entire lifetime. There are the big boppers we all know and love – Hamlet, Lear, R&J – but there are others, too, often overlooked as the painful result of a disturbed graphomaniac. But those are the ones which speak to this playwright’s timeless obsession with content.
There are too many obscure Shakespeare plays to choose from. However, if I had to pick just one –it can be done with minimal effort. Order What You Like (in later years remade under the title Gratuity’s Not Included) is a wonderful comedy of table manners where the cast argues over the bill at the end of a prodigious feast. With memorable lines like “Thou desired the pheasant, didn’t thou?” “Dinner is a meal ordered by a fool, full of wine and lard, signifying something.” It's hard to beat the iconic St. Service speech delivered by the head waiter towards the end of the play, imploring his diners to do their duty. It's a monologue that still leaves me rolling in laughter. “We few, we soapy few, we band of washers. For he to-night that tips his gold to me shall be my patron.” And this was at a time when 20% was far from the societal norm.
Shakespeare’s plays weren’t exactly plays, at least not in the Mamet sense. They were closer to ads. He crafted a lasting image of himself as the preeminent playwright of his day, forging an unmatched personal brand with enduring content.
You can't spell "brand" without "bard."
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