The Atlantic | March 2004 | Rewrite Shakespeare Contest

The Atlantic Monthly | March 2004

Writing Contest

Rewrite Shakespeare

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Revisions of Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" speech, posted on February 24, 2004.

These revisions were written in response to the same assignment given to "Shakespeare" in the article "Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?".

he world is like dinner theater. People may be said to behave much as actors. Birth is like an entrance. Death is like an exit. Stage right or stage left? It really doesn't matter.

A person changes throughout his lifetime, much as an actor plays different parts; seven, for example.

First, the person plays a crying, messy baby who vomits on his nurse's arms. Then he limns an elementary school student, whose young face is sullen, as he trudges with his heavy backpack slowly along the melancholy route to school. After that, it's teen romance, which burns very hot, accompanied by ballad music and eyebrow plucking.

The next phase is joining the military, which entails a myriad of bizarre promises, such as enforcing the Patriot Act, and attempting to apprehend bearded terrorists. This is concomitant with an increasing level of aggression and bouts of quick temper, despite a desire to present a light and calm demeanor, even in battle.

Later still, he enters full, responsible adulthood. Usually this means he gradually becomes an out of shape and serious professional, and youthful high jinks give way to business suits.

The sixth, or penultimate, phase is well into middle age, with a gut and eyeglasses. Getting older is not much fun. Clothes don't fit, strength diminishes, and even his voice changes, possibly from asthma.

The last role a person plays is the Alzheimer's victim, helpless, with no teeth, nearly blind, in need of constant care and a good supply of Depends.

—Joe Bodolai
Beverly Hills, CA

Reader's evaluation: While Mr. Bodolai's essay has a variety of sentence structures and wide-ranging vocabulary, he does not give enough examples from history, literature, or current events to support some of the ideas he argues. Therefore, the essay is, according to the rubric, good but not great. Grade: 5 out of 6.

inkletter posits in his statement that there are four stages in life. I would argue that "stages" implies the continuity of a single personality over the course of a life, and that rather than a single personality with stages, life itself is the stage and each of us are actors that play roles on that stage. To extend the theater metaphor further, consider that we each make an entrance and exit in the form of birth and death. During the time between birth and death we play many distinct and separate roles, roles that are sometimes at odds with earlier roles we have played, thus demonstrating that rather than possessing a singular personality, we are each more like a guild of actors.

To simplify my thesis, I will focus only on the roles played by a man over the course of his life, starting with the Infant. In this role, the actor is helpless, dependent on others for support, and not even in control of his own bladder and bowels. I can demonstrate that this is actually a role, because if it were only a "stage" it would be much the same in all eras. But the "era" itself could be considered the "director" which determines how the role is played. In the late 19th and early 20th century, prior to child-labor laws and compulsory schooling, it was necessary to get kids out of the dependent stage and into the steel mills (or onto the farms) as quickly as possible. But today in the 21st century, with the trend of coddling child-worship and the invention of size six Pampers, one can continue to play certain aspects of the Infant role all the way up to kindergarten.

The next two roles—the Schoolboy and the Lover—quickly fade from one to the next. The Schoolboy is reluctant to play his role, and this has long been known. Take, for example, Mark Twain's portrayal of boyhood through his fictional character, Tom Sawyer, where Tom is shown to avoid school and go swimming whenever possible. But it's while still a Schoolboy that a man begins rehearsing for the role of Lover. Consider again Tom Sawyer, who is smitten with love for the young Becky Thatcher, so much so that he valiantly takes a caning for her in front of the entire class.

After the Lover, we have the role of Warrior. Some men play this role literally and seek their glory in the military. But all occupations that men use to pursue their glory are seen through metaphors of war. The writer's pen is his sword, and the businessman seeks his glory and honor in battling at the corporate front, sometimes even engaging in "hostile takeovers." This is best exemplified—and satirized—by the Monty Python film The Meaning of Life where we see an ancient warring naval vessel morph into a modern day corporate building, and the building literally begins to sail around to do battle with other corporate buildings manned by warrior-businessmen.

As the Warrior's belly and bottom widen, and the certainty of middle-age sets in, we observe that a man begins to play the role of Judge, making moral pronouncements that he believes are based on his own experiences, but which are usually in direct opposition to the earlier roles he has played and forgotten. The Judge is most in opposition to the Schoolboy and the young Lover. In our current era, the best example of this is the Baby Boomer, who once fiercely embodied the rebellious Schoolboy and unrepentant Lover, but having forgotten the necessities of playing those roles, pontificates on "abstinence" and delivers smug platitudes to the young like "just say no" and "this is your brain on drugs."

The Judge's energy and certainty do finally fade into the Sunset years of old age, which is a much more childlike role, and thus often more compatible to performing as protagonist with the Schoolboy, with the Judge as antagonist. Often kids share much in common with their aging grandparents, as opposed to their parents, the pompous Judges. In the Sunset role, there is more time available to reflect and remember the importance of playing the reluctant Schoolboy and passionate Lover role to the hilt, and thus we see the charitable lenience so many grandparents tend to grant their grandchildren.

The final sad role is a reprise of the first: a return to helpless infancy, in which a man is dependent, toothless, possibly back in diapers, and often viewed as a burden. Again, this role is greatly influenced by the era in which it is played. At one time, a family would, with integrity and devotion, take care of the aged Infant, thus surrounding a man's final performance with a soundtrack of dignity and love. But today, with the Warrior busily building his stock portfolio, and the Judge spending his huge tax cuts on an unsustainable lifestyle fueled by maxed-out credit cards, the Second Infant is usually ushered off to whither and die in a nursing home, which is truly the stage of "obsolescence" to which Linkletter refers. For a man's final performance and closing curtain to fall on such a dismal stage makes life's play a tragedy.

—P. J. Church
Fayetteville, AR

Reader's evaluation: Mr. Church's essay demonstrates good organization, employs impressive vocabulary, has a variety of sentence structures and uses clear and appropriate examples throughout. Most importantly, it's really long. Grade: 6 out of 6.

n life's stage we are all just players.
We come and go in a show of seven acts:
From drooling babes without woes or cares
To students weighted by books upon their backs.

Next we enter full of love's afflictions,
Then seek our fame in war's unending horrors.
We pose and praise and spout our maledictions.
Now aged, we squeak and schlep in outsized drawers.

And as the lights grow dim and curtains tumble,
We end our play sans roar, with just a mumble.

—Raymond Ramirez

Dallas, TX

Reader’s evaluation: Mr. Ramirez's decision to write his essay in verse is certainly daring, but his clever and creative rhymes win him no points in this context. In fact, he must be punished for them. There are a few fancy words here, but no clear topic and concluding sentences. It totally lacks examples. And it is way too short; altogether it is only six sentences long. Grade: 2 out of 6.

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