Michael Van Osch
Shakespeare? Now? Really?
This week I’m looking back at 2020, where I was a year ago, and how I - like so many of us - ended up going down a path unplanned. That path led me to creativity, community, and starting a Shakespeare-inspired side business that I hope to grow in the year ahead.
I fell into creating an online newsletter, The HARK Journal, during the boredom and anxiety of the 2020 Covid lockdown. It was basically a survival mechanism. The HARK Journal newsletter (harkjournal.com) features daily emails that distill Shakespeare quotes into relevant, two-minute meditations to help guide one through the day. This project came about because I needed it. It’s not just sound and fury to say, “Shakespeare Saved Me”. But what followed I couldn’t have predicted.
In a year in which so much agency has been taken away from us, to be able to build something, connect with interesting people, and create community, has been a huge gift. Thank you, William Shakespeare!
When the COVID lockdown hit, my job as arts marketing director came to a halt like so many others. I was restless and missed my community. I’ll be honest, I can’t say I started as a raving fan of the Bard. You could count me somewhere in the middle of the road on Shakespeare: some very good experiences and some, well, let’s say less than interesting experiences both on the stage and on the page. So clearly I had no intention of digging into Shakespeare’s works for inspiration during one of the hardest, strangest years to date.
Action is Eloquence
But, as cliche as they can be, sometimes a quote hits you square in the face and wakes you up. I guess it all started when I watched a fantastic “Stratford Festival on Film” version of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. I grew up in Ontario, so for me, the excellent Stratford Festival (Stratfordfestival.ca) was my original positive Shakespeare experience as a kid. COVID had been taking a mental toll, and by May I was going crazy with next to nothing to do.
As I sat there watching this great production featuring actor Andre Sills in the title role, the words “action is eloquence” punched through my lockdown-induced malaise. Hmm. Action is eloquence. Action is eloquence. I thought to myself, what do those words mean for me, today, in the midst of all of this global pandemic uncertainty?
The answer, at its most basic, was to get up off of the couch and do something! Anything! This quote, spoken by a mother to a son in the midst of a crisis, got me moving again. That experience spurred me on to consider other Shakespeare quotes more closely. Hey, if they’re newly motivating to me, they’ll motivate others, and we could all use a little help right now.
Shakespeare Quotes / Nothing Will Come of Nothing
Tossing quotes at people is so cliche…so overdone…so 1980s. Everyone and their mother post quotes online. Boring! I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted to really see if and how Shakespearean quotes translated in our current world. Can we apply these famous quotes to modern life to get us through this crazy time and whatever comes next? Could I use that great knowledge to help inspire people and keep them going?
HARK 2.0
Those questions led to The HARK Journal. Building HARKJournal.com has been an amazing journey I might never have had time or inspiration to take on if not for the pandemic. In retrospect, creating this newsletter and website was a natural next step. I had already started HARK Clothing Co. (aka Bard Shirts) 18 months earlier as an experiment.
My logic back then had been “if people were always buying T-shirts and jerseys of their favorite teams and brands like NIKE, then what brand can Shakespeare fans follow?” Why doesn’t someone give these fans a brand to call their own? But what would you call it that makes sense and is fun? HARK! What word is more Shakespeare-y than that? Let’s call it HARK, as in “hey, listen up!” HARKClothingCo.com (aka BardShirts.com) seemed to resonate and gave me exposure on Instagram, so when I started The HARK Journal it gained some traction quickly because I already had a small following.
Bootstrapped Covid Creative Endeavor
Once the idea hit of turning Shakespeare quotes into The HARK Journal daily newsletter, I started to get excited about keeping busy, engaged and connecting with others. Doing something. Action = eloquence. Through Instagram, I watched and engaged as more and more theatres and actors turned to Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays as something to do during shutdown. I worked on The HARK Journal in May and June, got some other writers to help, and launched it on my birthday, July 15th. It was a moment in which measuring the ROI of my time was secondary to creating something I cared about and hoped would help others.
The more I dug through Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, King Lear, Macbeth, and others, the more inspiration I found and the deeper my relationship with Shakespeare became. I was surprised at how much it grabbed me. I had never been someone who was really into Shakespeare. I had never studied Shakespeare seriously and certainly didn’t read The Sonnets for fun.
Shakespeare Saved Me: Creating Connection and Community
I started this project with the goal to help myself and others keep going through the continuing crisis. Every weekday, I send out a 2-minute email with inspiration based on the wisdom of the world’s greatest writer. I wanted something for people like me, those who perhaps didn’t consider themselves major Shakespeare fans, but also those well-versed in the Bard.
I was surprised how much people were into it. When you put something out there and immediately 30 people you don’t even know sign up for it, it’s like, wow, I might be onto something. Turns out lots of people out there love digging into Shakespeare and interpreting his quotes. Before I knew it, people were reaching out, expressing their gratitude, telling me how much they liked the daily emails. All of a sudden, I was interacting with the world again. As Artistic Directors and staff from theatres such as the Nashville Shakespeare Festival and Sweet Tea Shakespeare, to name a few, started subscribing and sending kudos, more ideas appeared.
Shakespeare Theatre Companies
After chatting with both theatre-goers and theatre makers, I realized there are lots of other people out there who would be interested in hearing what the actual Shakespeare companies across the US and Canada are doing to survive lockdown. Not only would I have an excuse to talk to more colleagues at other theatres but maybe this was a way to bring their cause and creativity to a larger audience.
I began researching Shakespeare companies large and small (there are well over 200 in the US alone) and reaching out to them. I invited directors, actors, playwrights, and authors to participate in Zoom interviews, and by December had over thirty interviews posted on the HARKJournal.com.
Through this process, I’ve seen the magic behind the quote “action is eloquence” play out over and over again. A string of actions and subsequent happy accidents have led me to make wonderful acquaintances and have sparked more ideas for possible collaborations in the future. I even had some custom brass medallions minted with “Action is eloquence” on one side and an image of Shakespeare on the other to serve as a talisman to bring those who carry it back to some of the most simple yet profound words of encouragement.
But Why the Shakespeare Boom Now?
Our society is all about sports and entertainment. Shakespeare was the premiere entertainer of his day, and perhaps his increased popularity today is in some way connected to the fact that he lived in a time when waves of the plague would frequently shut down the theatres. During the Coronavirus pandemic, when the traditional forms of society have been shut down, a sort of Zoom-based sport of the mind seems to have taken over.
Some people are turning to Shakespeare as something they never quite had time for prior. Ten months into COVID reality, many of us are hungry for the opportunity Shakespeare gives us to take the long view on life, to delve into stories and philosophies that have stood the test of time and will certainly outlive us all.
Lockdown accelerated this phenomenon with the online presence of so many plays, giving us easier-than-ever access to the brilliance of Shakespeare, even if they weren’t live theatre as we know it. Artists have taken to online performances, readings, anything to keep busy, stay connected, and share what they love. Hey, we are all in this together - even if we are stuck home alone.
And hark, let’s be honest. theatres and teachers of Shakespeare have an intrinsic motivation to keep interest in Shakespeare’s works alive. The more people who feel that Shakespeare’s stories, themes, and messages are accessible to them, the more demand there will be to see his plays and learn about them. So in a sense, it comes back to marketing.
Promoting Shakespeare
One of the authors I interviewed quoted critic Harold Bloom saying that we don’t read Shakespeare, Shakespeare reads us. Well, maybe, we don’t promote Shakespeare, Shakespeare promotes us. Never in a million years would I have guessed that I’d be building a newsletter (and clothing) business based around my tenth grade English class nemesis William Shakespeare. But then again, I couldn’t have predicted being locked down for a year in the middle of a global pandemic either.
I can’t think of anything more eloquent than the providential way in which lockdown inspired the online availability of that particular play production at that particular moment. I watched that production of Coriolanus and heard three magic words, “Action is eloquence”, and ever since, more and more ideas keep presenting themselves to celebrate Shakespeare today. Shakespeare saved me during COVID lockdown, of that, I have no doubt.
For 2021 I’m looking to partner with a relevant charity, create a real, in-your-hands, personal “HARK Journal” for followers, release new apparel, and work on something secret I’ve tentatively named The Hamlet Project.
Not sure where the HARK Journal will take me next, but if Shakespeare has taught me anything it’s that I have to keep doing something, every day, and that action, whatever it is, will show me the next step to take, and the next thing, and on and on. Because action, my friends, is eloquence.
