January is ending. The red paper hearts taped to store windows announce the coming month with its popular holiday: Valentine’s Day. Whatever its origins, whether in the celebration of a martyr named Valentine or the mating of the birds in medieval England, Valentine’s Day is a lovely time to think of love, past and present.
I’ve loved three men, but one topped the rest. His name is Will. He changed my life, leading me to ask questions. Indeed, teaching me to ask them and how to seek their answers.
I cannot say I always admired him, not even from afar. In the beginning, I accepted that he was there, someone to know about. As a teenager, I first saw his work on television, starring Christopher Plummer, and later Richard Chamberlain. And, no, he was not Paddy Chayefsky or Rod Serling. Remember, his name is Will.
While still in high school, I would see that same play, with a different star, at the Allen Park Theater in Michigan. I think three of us from the high school newspaper staff went. Possibly the nun who taught senior English came along. It was a cold, gray, rainy day. I remember the chill as much as I remember the film. Then, the next summer, I finally saw his work performed live, in Canada.
By now, you may have seen through my little riddle. If you haven’t, I will give you clues. The star of the film was Richard Burton. The play was perhaps the most performed play in theatrical history, “Hamlet.” The theater in Canada was in Stratford, Ontario.
But, no, my love for Will still hadn’t blossomed.
Forbidden to attend the University of Michigan, forbidden to major in archaeology or physical anthropology, I went to a Catholic women’s college where I majored in political science. It was there that my affection for Will took root.
At the time, my college sponsored a series of guest speakers of whom the most impressive was John Simon, who became my unlikely matchmaker. The often despised critic came onto the stage wearing a Commedia dell’arte mask. I sat up straight and paid attention. I took more away from his speech than I did from Burton’s “Hamlet.” What I focused on was Simon’s attention to the “anti-Avonians,” who claim that anyone but Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. My response was that the anti-Avonians discredited the individual. Did one need a university degree to understand human nature? Can one use language skillfully without knowing how to diagram a sentence or without understanding the Latin roots of the words used?
Sir Andrew Jonathan Bate, better known as Jonathan Bate, researched Shakespeare’s peers. Only half of them had university degrees.
But I’ve wandered far from my love for Will. By the middle of my senior year, I knew I needed to go in another direction, that my heart wasn’t in law or government work. I also found myself dissatisfied with most novels. I had a minor in the humanities and a minor in journalism. Another English course might get me into graduate school in literature. I registered for a class in Shakespeare.
That’s when the magic ensnared me. While reading “Macbeth,” I thought there is quite a bit of the Celt in this guy from Stratford-upon-Avon. I could also see how much the medieval clung to him. Then, because Scotland’s soon-to-be king hails the witches with the words, “I conjure you,” I asked myself, what did conjure mean in 1606? It actually meant something close to what it means today, to engage in magic, but also to “call up, bring out, produce.”
I was smitten but still played hard-to-get. I had a long way to face the job market as an English major and an even longer journey to enjoy fiction. More than 20 years later, I had an idea to bring together eight of Shakespeare’s female characters to meet and talk about emerging from Will’s quill, being a woman, dealing with life and death, love and loss. It’s a project I have yet to finish, but it remains a labor of love.
And Will still challenges me, as good partners do.
I joke about loving Will, but the nice thing about loving a man who’s been dead for 400 years is he doesn’t talk back. Early wishes for a happy Valentine’s Day to Will, and to all of you.
A native of Michigan, Susan Wozniak belongs to three alumni associations with at least one other woman named Susan Wozniak ineach. She is not related to Steve.