Why read plays?

It is an unwritten rule on the internet that whenever you speak about reading Shakespeare, someone is to appear and (angrily) say “Plays are meant to be seen, not read.” 

This blog post is me responding to that once and for all. 

Why read plays, especially Shakespeare? 

1. The Preface to the First Folio says “Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe.” 
2. Shakespeare is a dramatic poet—poetry is better savoured when read.
3. It’s also better to think about the meaning of a phrase, a line, a speech when you read the play (especially for a non-native speaker like me). 
4. A play, especially a Shakespeare play, is different from a screenplay. You may not read the screenplay of Citizen Kane (though you can, it’s published) because the greatness and influence of Citizen Kane also lie in mise-en-scène and cinematography and sound and editing and acting and so on; the greatness of Shakespeare lies in his words. 
5. A performance is an interpretation: Ian McKellen’s Iago is different from Bob Hoskins’s Iago is different from Rory Kinnear’s Iago. We form our own interpretation from the text. 
6. Which actor on the stage or the screen can possibly convey the richness and complexity of Hamlet, Cleopatra, or Falstaff on the page?  
7. Whether or not Shakespeare intended his plays to be read, people have read—and loved reading—his plays for centuries. 
8. If you only watch plays, you would never know many major works of Western literature, you would never know all the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Molière, Racine, Calderón, Ibsen, etc. 
9. Even with Shakespeare, the most performed playwright in the world, some of his plays are rarely performed. 
10. Or you may go to the theatre thinking you’re watching a Chekhov play or an Ibsen play, but it’s “a new version” by someone else. 
11. If you want to know Greek tragedy but only want to see it performed, you not only have no choice in which play is performed, you also have no choice in which translation is being used. You might even end up with a hip hop version (like The Bacchae at the National Theatre in London).   
12.  A great performance may be an exhilarating experience and deepen your understanding of the play, but a bad performance, well… 

“Plays are meant to be seen, not read”? Just admit you’re not used to reading plays.