Shakespeare in Action

A monologue by delivered by Kenneth Branagh in the 1995 rendition of "Othello".

          All my life I've heard of Shakespeare and his plays.  From an early age I knew the main plot to Romeo and Juliet without having to pick up the book.  Last year, we were required to read Othello, my second Shakespeare play at the time.  I remember thinking of the language as tedious and excessively elaborate.  The plot, is of course ingenious and tragic, but seemed, to me at least, hindered by the inefficient communication between the reader and the play's language.  All this changed when our teacher showed us the movie's rendition of a monologue.  When reading the monologue, it takes several attempts to fully grasp the meaning behind the page long paragraphs, but when watching and listening to the monologue I automatically understood everything.  Obviously Shakespeare is meant to be acted out, but I never fully experienced the full power of Shakespeare's work until I saw it acted out.