Peter Barnes's Shakespeare

by Bernard F. Dukore

Not only does Shakespeare mean different things to different people, he may mean different things to the same person. This is especially true if that person is a writer, truer if he or she is a writer in the English language, still truer if a British writer. It is certainly true of Peter Barnes.

Part of Barnes's attitude toward Shakespeare is a reaction against what Bernard Shaw called 'Bardolatry', a word Shaw coined in his preface (1900) to Three Plays for Puritans, to mean idolatry of the Bard (of Avon). Barnes expresses his view of this Shakespears with strong antibardolatry:

Some of Shakespeare is so over-complicated I swear three-quarters
of the audience don't know what the hell's going on. They sit there because
it's culturally acceptable. There's a terrible snobbery about Shakespeare....

What Shaw said, in the same preface, of those whoe were shocked by his Shakespearean criticisms may be said of those who are shocked by Barnes's:

Too much surprise at them betrays an acquaintance with
Shakespeare criticism so limited as not to include even the prefaces of Dr. Johnson...
His genuine critics, from Ben Jonson to Mr. Frank Harris, have always kept
as far on this side of idolatry as I.

Notice, not incidentally in view of Barnes's next Shakespeare that Shaw's last expression wittily paraphrase Ben Jonson, who wrote, in Timbre (1620-25), 'I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side of idolatry as much as any.'

Another of Barnes's "Shakespeares", or another use to which he puts Shakespeare is as whipping boy to promote Jonson. Although he greatly admires Jonson, also this side of idolatry, he is careful to specify that the Jonson he cherishes is 'the comic writer', not the Jonson of the tragedies or masques. That's another country." A corollary is that the Shakespeare he derides in contrast to Jonson is the Shakespeare of the comedies, not of the tragedies. 'Shakespeare's comedies may be ife-enhancing and whatever', he insists, 'but funny they ain't.'

In 1972, the four-hundredth anniversary of Jonson's birth, he contrasted the two: 'Shakespeare is a geat inspired amateur, and Jonson is the great professional.' He called Jonson

one of the greatest playwrights in the world; and we're lucky to have such a
playwright writing in English. And of course we disgracefully neglect him. One is
at a loss for words that here it is, the four-hundredth anniversary and not a production
worthy of the name is shown anywhere. If it were Shakespeare we would be
beaten silly by the celebrations.

One of Barnes's "Shakespeares" derives from Barness class consciousness and class antagonisms. Whereas Jonson 'died in near poverty and out of fashion', Shakespeare, who was

English to the core, retired to the Elizabethan equivalent of Eastbourne to end his
days, thankful, no doubt, to be finally finished with the sordid business of earning a
living. After all, writing was no career for a gentleman. Fortunately, Jonson was no
gentleman but an apprentice bricklayer.

Barnes pleads for a Jonsonian alternative to Shakespeare:

If there is a millionaire patron who wishes to be remembered for something more than
making money, he should immediately start buillding a Republican Jonson Theatre. For
just as there is an RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company), there should be an RJC. It has
to be republican because Jonson 'talked scandal about Queen Elizabeth" just
after she died (always the best time)....

Unlike Shakespeare's characters, Jonson's are 'Not Kings and Queens but people who have to earn a living.' In other words, 'Shakespeare gave us rulers, Jonson, the ruled, and proves they are every bit as important.' Jonson 'is down here in the streets with us.'

In Jonson, as Barnes acknowledges, he sees a kindred spirit, whicch he does not see in Shakespeare. Although unlike Jonson, Barnes was not a bricklayer, his antecedents are working-class. When Barnes maintains that Jonson 'had the luck not to go to university and be corrupted by literature, he never sacrificed theatrical qualities or the study of character to it', he could be describing himself. He too did not go to university, yet he too is saturated in literature. Like Jonson, he does not sacrifice theatrical effect or characterization to literature. Whereas Barnes writes films in order to earn large sums of money, Jonson wrote masques---which as Barnes points out, 'were the equivalent of films.'

Surprisingly, in view of what he says about Shakespeare and Jonson, one of Barnes's "Shakespeares" resembles Barnes. In 1992, he was commissioned to write a movie, The Dark Lady, so far unproduced. As its title hints, it is about Shakespeare.Like other ENglish-lanuage dramatists who use Shakespeare as a character, though in his case probably not deliberately, he puts something of himself into the role. In one sequence in The Dark Lady, Shakespeare and Jonson leave the tavern, where they have been drinking, Shakespeare carrying a pot of ale, Jondon a pole with a candle atop it. They talk.

SHAKESPEARE: I've a progblem with a monologue. Listen. 'To be alive or
not to be alive. That is the question we all ask ourselves.' What do you think?

JONSON considers: 'To be alive or not to be alive. That is the question we
all ask ourselves.' Hhmm. Needs cutting.

Copyright Technofilm 1997