Rank Shakespeare's plays

[Jackson Richardson]

Here's a party game you might like to try. Rank Shakespeare's plays in order of importance/interest/artistic success.

I can't do it in detail but to start off, here are my rankings as Top, Middle, Bottom and Beneath Bottom. Any comments? Have I missed any out?

Top Third
Anthony and Cleopatra
Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Lear,
Coriolanus
Henry IV Parts 1 & 2
Tempest, Winter’s Tale, Midsummer Night’s Dream
Twelfth Night
As You Like It

Middle Third
Richard II & III
Henry V
Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, All Well’s That Ends Well
Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar
Troilus and Cressida

Bottom Third
Henry VI Parts 1,2 & 3
Henry VIII
King John
Cymbeline, Pericles,. Timon of Athens
Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Comedy of Errors, Merry Wives of Windsor

Rock Bottom, although I haven’t read them recently
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Titus Andronicus

[YesNo]

I would rank Midsummer Night's Dream as the best. I wouldn't mind seeing it again as a live performance, but I have not seen most of these plays even as videos. Titus Andronicus grossed me out, so I agree with your rock bottom ranking on that one.

[Clopin]

Come on, Titus Andronicus is pretty good.

[YesNo]

I prefer the comedies, but I can see how the story was entertaining if a bit gross. I saw the version with Anthony Hopkins in it. I can still remember Titus telling his daughter's assailants as they hung upside down, "Gentlemen, prepare your necks."

[Jackson Richardson]

I suppose Midsummer Night's Dream is my favourite honestly, but that sounds a bit immature like saying the best bit of a meal was the chocolate ice cream rather than the first growth claret.

I don't care too much for Hamlet (I just don't identify with the whinger) but it has to go in the top bracket.

I'm re-reading Coriolanus at the moment and it definitely is up in the top. Any other takers?

[Pompey Bum]

Have I missed any out?

You forgot The Merchant of Venice.

Here are mine:

A/A+
King Lear
Henry IV Part 1
Henry IV Part 2
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Macbeth
Hamlet
Richard III
Othello
(Sonnets)

A-
Romeo and Juliet
Henry V
Julius Caesar
The Taming of the Shrew
Anthony and Cleopatra
The Tempest

B+
Twelfth Night
Titus Andronicus
The Merchant of Venice
Richard II
Measure for Measure
Much Ado About Nothing

B
As You Like It
The Merry Wives of Windsor
All's Well That Ends Well
Love’s Labor's Lost
Comedy of Errors

B-
Henry VI Part 1
Henry VI Part 2
Henry VI Part 3
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Henry VIII

Incomplete (haven't read 'em)
King John
The Winter's Tale
Coriolanus
Pericles
Cymbeline
Troilus and Cressida
Timon of Athens

[Jackson Richardson]

I'm reading Coriolanus at the moment. Do give it a try. All the commentators say it is about politics, but for me the real tragedy is not the name part, but his mum.

I saw a student prodcution of Winter's Tale in which a friend played Autolyclus and I was very moved by an RSC production. I re-read it last week and the loose ends were too apparent - it just isn't a realistic play. Paulina and the Old Shepherd are lovely creations: "You look on things dying, I on things new born".

And I've just re-read Troilus and Cressida. Seriously odd, But some good quotes.

[Jackson Richardson]

The Merchant of Venice. That was silly of me since I spent the afternoon watching a performance at the Almeida in London. The conceit was to set in Los Vegas, with Gobbo as an Elvis impersonator and Portia's caskets a TV game show. Very funny at times, but I found it depressing. That's probably me rather than them.

Probably in the top bracket.

Why do you rank Taming of the Shrew so high? I wasn't convinced by Katherine's taming.

[Pompey Bum]

The Merchant of Venice. That was silly of me since I spent the afternoon watching a performance at the Almeida in London.

I might have missed it, too, except that I recently read it. (I was curious after our discussion about Fagin on another thread). I found its poetry better than its plot. Sometimes Shakespeare liked to defy expectations about the form he was using (Measure for Measure a comedy?--poor Pompey Bum! He had an uphill climb!) This risk taking is more successful in some plays than others. The Merchant of Venice does work better as a comedy than Measure for Measure, but it takes itself a little too seriously, which makes Shylock an uglier character than Shakespeare may have intended. But his way with words seduces you from the first line. Despite its faults, it's a great play.

The conceit was to set in Los Vegas, with Gobbo as an Elvis impersonator and Portia's caskets a TV game show. Very funny at times, but I found it depressing. That's probably me rather than them.

Oh I dispise modern dress Shakespeare. It's one of the reasons I like to read the plays so much: I don't have to contend with some directors post-modern vision or an attempt to ramp/camp up the comedy. The Merchant of Venice is just not that funny a play. It's not a romp. It's best to face that fact and play to the work's strength, which is its gloriously rich language. Elvis imitators may or may not have their place in the overall scheme of things. But for me, Shakespearean drama is not it.

Why do you rank Tamin of the Shrew so high? I wasn't convinced by Katherine's taming.

You know, it's for a related reason. I find The Taming of the Shrew side-splittingly and endearingly funny, especially Kate's appallingly sexist "taming," precisely because it is so unbelievable and absurd. The scene where Petruchio tries to drive her nuts is something from Monty Python. Its divorce from reality, delivered straight faced, just makes it funnier and funnier. Obviously it's not as great a comedy as A Midsummer's Night Dream (in which the wit has a more range--from girl-fighting, to intellectual snobbery, to genuine sweetness), but some of the scenes are just as funny, which is saying a lot. It's also a sexy play. It is a romp. But its comedy is a bit simplistic, too. I can see where it would be easy to make a really bad production of The Taming of the Shrew. The only one I ever saw, though, was brilliant. Kate knew just what she was doing, and she ended up loving Petruchio not because she had been "tamed" but because they were two peas in a pod--the only ones who could ever love (or even put up with) one another. The Taming of the Shrew is not a subtle play, but in its own way, it has a sweet side, too.

[Lykren]

I'll play! I like Pompey's idea of using grades. But my school won't be on the plus and minus system:

A

Macbeth
Hamlet
King Lear
The Tempest
Romeo and Juliet
Twelfth Night
The Winter's Tale
1 Henry IV
A Midsummer Night's Dream
As You Like It

B

Antony & Cleopatra
Othello
2 Henry IV
Cymbeline
Henry V
The Merchant of Venice
Measure for Measure

C

Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Much Ado About Nothing
All's Well that Ends Well
The Merry Wives of Windsor
King John
Richard III
Troilus and Cressida
Coriolanus
Richard II

D

The Taming of the Shrew
III Henry VI
Love's Labours Lost
The Two Gentlemen of Verona

F

II Henry VI
The Comedy of Errors
I Henry VI

Haven't read:

Titus Andronicus, Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen, or Timon of Athens. I was, frankly, sick of Shakespeare after reading them all consecutively in a couple of months. I'll probably only ever revisit the A's.

[Calidore]

Wow, people really don't seem to like the Henry VI and VIII plays at all. As someone who's not familiar with them, what's wrong with them?

[Pompey Bum]

He was (probably) too young when he did the Henry VI plays and too old when he did Henry VIII. He may not have been the sole author of those plays, although opinions differ.

[Jackson Richardson]

Oh, I like Henry VI Pts 1,2 & 3. I read them recently and I've even seen them on the small stage of the Young Vic. (This was a marathon of all the histories from R2 to R3) at the Barbican and the Young Vic.)

I even prefer them to Richard III.

But if they were typical of Shakespeare, he would not be admired as he is.

I'll report back on Henry VIII when I've read it.

[Jackson Richardson]

PS. Last Saturday at the Almeida, I probably lost some of the nuances due to my unfamiliarity with the late Mr Presley's repertoire. Henry IV at the Barbican recently was clothed traditionally to the extent of Anthony Sher as Falstaff with cushions. You'd have liked that.

[Pompey Bum]

It's wonderful that you have access to so much live Shakespeare, Jonathan. I used to when I was in college, but unfortunately, that was before Shakespeare's time.

I'm inclined to agree with you about Hamlet, by the way. It's certainly one of the greatest plays in literature, but in my opinion, its automatic assignment to the top of the Shakespearean heap has become a little too--automatic? King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello are more visceral plays (Hamlet is so damned heady). The Henry the Fourths appear more recognizably human to me. In some ways, Hamlet seems like an exposition about what it means to be a man (by which I mean an adult male, not just a human being). Several versions of manhood are critiqued in the ideal, and eventually, after a bit of bloodletting, Hamlet embraces his own noble but tragic destiny. In Henry IV, Prince Hal is just as troubled a figure as Hamlet, but he's not nearly as good. His "noble destiny" as Henry V is a sham and he knows it. On the eve of Agincourt (in Henry V), when he famously prays for his troops, he is still begging God to forgive his father for usurping the throne. In Henry IV Part 2, Hal is not choosing between ideals. He is betraying his lowlife friends because it turns out to be more important for him to embrace the lie than to wallow in the truth. In Henry V, he even hangs some of them. The price he (and they) pay, it seems to me, is more applicable to human experience than Hamlet's slow expiration in Horatio's arms. We all live like Prince Hal to some extent. How many of us die like Hamlet?