Pursued By A Bear

'They', those wonderful and perfect people who love to direct the tiniest details of our lives, say that we shouldn't 'sweat the small stuff'. I'd broadly agree with that, unless the "small stuff" in question are pieces of onion. This should be sweated down to an almost liquid pulp so as to make the reeky root more palatable.

And the phrase isn't used to refer to obese kids on sports day either. That would be sweating short stuff, not small stuff.

The term about sweaty small stuff is more normally used to mean that you shouldn't worry about details, you should get the big things sorted first. Control the whole and you'll be mostly OK. Of course this contradicts other phrases like 'look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves' or 'God is in the detail' but nobody ever said that English was a simple language.

Unless you're Shakespeare, that is. He made writing so simple that the rest of us who put ink on paper (and dots on screens) can only bow at his feet. He had a way of making words flow so simply that they dripped from him like honey.

I went to see 'The Winter's Tale' this week, noted as being possibly the most problematic of the Bard's so-called Problem Plays. It's certainly unusual, starting off as an exercise in psychological terror before suddenly switching style at around the halfway mark and becoming a bawdy comedy. Some of the language used is among Old Billy's most impenetrable text too making the audience work quite hard if they want to understand every single word said.

But you know what? They don't have to. If a Shakespeare play's performed well then we in the stalls don't have to fully understand each and every word. We can get the feeling and the intention of the line from the actor's body language. They show us the meaning by their actions. That's why it's called acting.

Those who say that they don't understand Shakespeare have usually never his works performed live, their only exposure to the work being having been forced to read set texts at school. When performed by a talented cast who put their all into it the plays come to life, as vibrant today as they were back in Will's time. And of course it helps that they've been blessed by some of the most colourful lines ever to be penned.

Watching Shakespeare, you don't have to sweat the small stuff. Just go with the flow.

© Shaun Finnie 2013