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This little item was the wintertime requisite high school Shakespearean outing for freshman year back in the sixties, in Ontario the Good.

An emerald Aspie, my thirteen year old brain could never understand, once Shylock had been neatly disposed of in a quivering blob by the Protestant merrymakers, that it was now time to loosen up and party hearty!

Well, sex sold in English lit back then, as now.

Not to mention the bating of Jewish holdouts to add to all the fun!

And so the last scene of the play is one long dirty joke. Yikes.

But Miss West, our prim and proper teacher for the play, just pooh-poohed the raunchy Bard, saying only that it wasn't quite in good taste.

So this little Aspie breathed easy again.
***

If you said Shakespeare really REACHED for his laffs, you'd be right.

After all, a good fella's gotta act like one of the boys, right or wrong!

And playing to the pit beefed up his royalties.

Not to mention cozying up to the Protestant Landed Gentry...

So go figure.

It was all in an honest day's wages.

So Merchant is a potboiler. The Bard just unbuttoned, then hit all the Right Buttons.

And waited for the good times to roll again financially!
***

If it wasn't for his more sincere poetry, we'd just discard Shakespeare outright. Prospero's magic is sporadic.

Just as, if Merchant didn''t possess poetic diamonds along with racist rubble, I'd toss my copy.

So picture this: the raunchy ring jokes have all ended. The boys all long for the pleasures their wenches' beds promise this merry night. And all is still...

And THEN (at last!) one voice begins a Song from the Heart!

"On such a night as this..." How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon the bank!

And everyone rejoices and joins in, with all rivalry, hatred and cheap laughs now forgotten.

The song rises to a joyful crescendo, and once again Shakespeare hits us where we live:

For now, in our hearts, we know All's Well that Ends Well!

And so, with sighs all round, each couple heads to their divers beds...

May your every wish come true, kids:

For now Our Prospero lives again!