KARACHI: They say, ‘the fool wonders, the wise man asks’. It is not the case with William Shakespeare’s fools. By that, one means the zany characters that Shakespeare has in some of his plays serve as those who speak truth to power. Interestingly, the powerful in his dramas are often fallible creatures, so they listen to what the fool has to say to them. This was the context of the play Shakespeare’s Fool staged by Eurythmy West Midlands from the UK on Wednesday evening at the ongoing World Culture Festival organised by the Arts Council of Pakistan.

The play, helmed by Maren Stott, starts with a young man emerging from the top aisles of the council’s auditorium uttering Jacques’ lines from As You Like It:

A fool, a fool, I met a fool i‘th forest,

A motley fool. A miserable world!

As I do live by food, I met a fool,

Who laid him down and basked him in the sun

And railed on Lady Fortune in good terms,

In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.

Then the man settles in the right corner of the stage which had a lectern from where he read most of Shakespeare’s passages (he could have done a better job with that). Immediately arrive characters who dance like fairies to the words that the narrator uses. A speech from The Winter’s Tale (when daffodils begin to peer) and lines from As You Like It (you are there followed by a faithful shepherd) to the well-known song from The Twelfth Night (O Mistress mine, where are you roaming).

But the performance takes a dramatic turn when King Lear and his fool come into the scheme of things. Here, the fool appears as… Fool. He tells the kings what’s needed to be told:

Why—after I have cut the egg i’ th’ middle and eat up the meat—the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i’ th’ middle, and gavest away both parts, thou borest thy ass o’ th’ back o’er the dirt.

Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped that first finds it so.

It is clear, there’s method to the madness.

Keeping the sagacious tone intact, Hamlet makes an appearance with one of the most poignant speeches ever written in the history of world literature about man’s existence:

I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all customs of exercises, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterilepromontory…

Once wisdom in foolery is established, things go back to jester-mode as the funniest scene of the play is performed from The Two Gentlemen of Verona in which Lance [servant of Proteus, a gentleman of Verona) appears with his dog Crab, talking about the animal not feeling sad about him leaving the house.

I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives.

Shakespeare’s Fool is a decent attempt in highlighting the seriousness in craziness when it comes to the world’s greatest playwright. While the live western classical music helps, it falls a bit short on the kind of zaniness that’s required for such an effort. The presence of dancers, the choreographic interpretation of the lines, put more emphasis on rhythm, and in the process dilutes the melody of seemingly foolish Shakespearean words. Because…

Have more than thou showest,

Speak less than thou knowest,

Lend less than thou owest.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2024