Anthony Hopkins is Not a Shakespearean Actor
That is, if he’s performing a work by Shakespeare
Update, 2025: A New York Times obituary for Claire van Kampen tells us that she “created authentic musical worlds for period works … including Shakespearean plays.” Really? Shakespearean plays? I understand that she created musical worlds for Shakespeare plays, but what Shakespearean plays — that is, plays that evoke Shakespeare or are written in the style of Shakespeare — is the obituary writer referring to?
Update, 2023: Stephen Colbert recently referred to Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen as “renowned Shakespearean actors.” Nope. Not Mirren, not McKellen, and not Hopkins. They are not Shakespearean actors.
There are many grammatical or typographical errors that annoy—three common ones for me would be it’s when it should be its; their instead of they’re; you’re when you mean your—but there’s one in particular that sticks in my craw. Permit me to list several examples of the apparently never-ending misuse of the word “Shakespearean.”
From a New York Times article:
“In season 1 of this cult-favorite Canadian Comedy [Slings & Arrows] from the 2000s, Geoffrey Tennant is lured back to the Shakespearean theater festival he fled when its artistic director, Oliver Welles, dies.”
From a New York Times review of Much Ado About Nothing:
“A delicious production of the great Shakespearean comedy starring Danielle Brooks.”
Also from the Times, this line from a review of Emily St. John Mandel’s novel Station Eleven:
A Shakespearean troupe in Toronto is performing King Lear when the leading man, a onetime matinee idol named Arthur Leander, starts behaving strangely.
From an advertisement for a spoken-word CD release of Cymbeline:
“Charles Russell’s take on a Shakespearean classic.”
From an Atlantic piece on the actor Geoffrey Owens:
“Last year, Owens gave a free Shakespearean master class to teenagers in South Orange, New Jersey.”
From The Times Literary Supplement:
“Festive mirth and seasonal resonances abound in three new Shakespearean productions.”
From a New York Review of Books piece on Cathleen Schine:
“Shakespearean analogies — the sundered twins of Twelfth Night and the farcical masters and servants of The Comedy of Errors — might have been templates for Schine, who in other novels has played games with classical models, but here she deftly avoids both sentiment and slapstick.”
From a Salon interview with Camille Paglia:
“Richard Burton, who was supposed to become the next great Shakespearean actor after Laurence Olivier…”
From Steve Stewart-Williams’s book The Ape that Understood the Universe:
They restricted their survey to stories that predated contact with the West — stories, in other words, that couldn’t have been “tainted” by Western individualism or Shakespearean sonnets.
Similarly, from a Slate headline:
“Shall I Compare a Pop Song to a Shakespearean Sonnet?”
Finally, there’s this headline from The Guardian:
“Top 10 best Shakespearean insults — to celebrate the bard’s birthday.”
Oh? Shakespearean insults, you say? You mean you weren’t able to find any insults by Shakespeare and had to rely on others written in the style of Shakespeare?
The ean suffix (sometimes rendered as ian) is used to indicate that something is like something else. If a writer is celebrated for writing stories that are reminiscent of Chekhov, a reviewer might refer to the writer’s “Chekhovian realism.” “Stoppardian” is a word that was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1978. It refers to Tom Stoppard. To be Stoppardian, the New York Times tells us, is “to employ elegant wit while addressing philosophical concerns.”
Think of “ian/ean” as part of a family of suffixes that achieve similar things, such as “ish” (“babyish”) and “esque” (“Beatlesque”), all of which is to say that a baby can’t ever be babyish because a baby is a baby, and Beatlesque can’t ever refer to the Beatles because the Beatles are the Beatles. “Paperback Writer” isn’t a Beatlesque song, but “Last Train to Clarksville” is.¹
So what about the proper use of “Shakespearean”? Does it ever show up? It does. Here’s a good one by The Hill, a tweet during the summer of 2018:
“Mueller and Trump star in a Shakespearean drama that grips the US.”
That’s good and proper.
From a New Yorker review of Hamnet, a novel by Maggie O’Farrell:
“…and there is an inspired scene in which the twins, in true Shakespearean fashion, trade places.”
No issue there.
Here’s a note from a New York Times guide on The Improvised Shakespeare Company:
“This Chicago-based improve group creates an impromptu Shakespearean masterpiece from the ground up.”
That is correct.
Let’s have one more for good measure. This is Bryan Cranston talking about his Breaking Bad character, Walter White:
“The depth of this tragic story made it feel like the character reached [a] Shakespearean level.”
Nineteen Eighty-Four isn’t a novel with an Orwellian theme because the novel is by George Orwell. The “Jupiter” isn’t a Mozartean symphony because it’s a symphony by Mozart. Hamlet isn’t a Shakespearean play because the play is by William Shakespeare — and it follows that Anthony Hopkins, taking on the role of King Lear, isn’t playing a Shakespearean character, he’s playing a Shakespeare character.²
And with that, I believe my necessaries are embark’d: farewell. That may not be the most suitable closing statement, but this Shakespearean quote — excuse me, Shakespeare quote — is the best one I could find.
¹. On other “ian” fronts, Ben Yagoda was kind to point out to me that “the Russian language” is one example among many of “-ian” showing up in an adjectival form. Fine, but that’s a separate matter. You will also see “ian” in “Canadian.” Again, a separate matter.
². For a true Shakespearean character, look no further than Brian Cox’s Logan Roy from Succession. With the show’s allusions to King Lear, you can’t get more Shakespearean than that!
Postscript (2/6/21): I see that The New York Times refers to Christopher Plummer, in the paper’s obituary for the man, “as among the pre-eminent Shakespeareans of the past century.” I hadn’t thought of that: “Shakespearean” as a noun. I suppose that’s acceptable in the same way a dedicated fan of J.R.R. Tolkien could be called a “Tolkienean.” But was Christopher Plummer a “Shakespearean actor”? He most certainly was not.
Postscript II (12/18/23): The New York Times tells us that Andre Braugher had “a list of Shakespearean roles to his credit.” I’m always open to admitting I’m wrong about something, but I’m not aware of any play that makes references to Shakespeare or alludes to Shakespeare or is written in the style of Shakespeare. I’m sure such a play exists somewhere. I’m just not aware of it. However, I can tell you that a Moliérean play exists — that is, a play that’s written in the style of Moliére. It’s by David Hirson. It’s called La Bête. It’s funny. I’d like to see it again.
Postscript III (12/19/23): Here’s a proper and beautiful use of “Shakespearean.” This is Ian Bassin speaking to Alex Wagner of MSNBC about the the Colorado ruling that Donald Trump cannot appear on the Colorado ballet for the 2024 election: “And so it’s kind of fitting. That after rising to political power, by falsely accusing Barack Obama of not being eligible to be president, it turns out that it’s Trump who a court has now determined is not eligible anymore for the presidency. In the great drama of history, that twist is almost Shakespearean in its perfection.”
Barry Lyons is a freelance writer living in New York City. Here, have another essay.
