Shakespeare's 'All The World's A Stage' read by OÁC/Music: John Dowland [ar.de.en.es.fr.it.ru subs] 

aka "The Seven Ages of Man" As You Like It, II, vii.
1616-2016: quadricentennial of The Bard
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If William Shakespeare somehow positions himself as a "shrieking harbinger", warning the people about effective or potential oppression, it has to be by proxy. The author & producer of plays cannot take the risk to expose himself as a political dissenter or a social critic. Hence he will resort to the proxy of some characters that will be in no way "heroic" or merely exemplary.
In As You Like It, only the character of "Melancholy Jaques" can indulge in criticizing the patronizing attitudes that Duke Sr displays when "wisely" stating that :
«we are not all alone unhappy:/This wide and universal theatre /Presents more woeful pageants than the scene / Wherein we play in.»
We may recognize here the leitmotiv used repeatedly by our political leaders: «don't complain, people. Some are in a worse situation».
Hence the role of the social critic will always be undertaken by a character presented as bitter, foolish or even mad.
Jaques' equivalent in other plays will be King Lear's fool, an "insane" prince like Hamlet, or a foolish railer like Thersites in Troilus & Cressida or Apemantus in Timon of Athens. Similarly only a picaresque bawdy character like Falstaff may indulge in saying "What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air." There is a recurrence of foil characters in Shakespeare plays, anti-heroes so to speak, whose discourse wavers between mere cynicism and its very opposite: a lament over human corruption. We may note that he borrowed the character of Thersites from none less than Homer.
This is why I find it particularly daft when people presenting a rendering of such a monologue term it "poem". There's no doubt the writing of the Bard is as poetic as in his sonnets or poems, but the confusion is pathetic. The discourse that is found in a poem is more or less supposed to reflect the poet's views. Only the xixth century romantics will change that.
Indeed no, these monologues are play segments. Putting them out of context and performing them as "poems" is not only unfaithful to the author, it is a semiotic stupidity. This is why I needed to restore the cue spoken by Duke Sr preceding the monologue . I have placed this cue in the mouth of a François Hollande puppet to restore the political impact of the monologue. And also because of the dramatic irony of the controversy over Hollande's contemptuous terming of the poor, "sans teeth". Striking how some words here sound to our xxi century ears.
Was François Hollande aware, when expressing his contempt for misery, that he had borrowed the expression "sans dents" from Shakespeare? Was it out of compassion?
I highly doubt it. For then he would have quoted the whole sentence: "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything" indicating that a deprivation of health care is the antechamber of death.You will notice, no doubt, that the images used for the end credits echo the 'Frères Humains' live version dedicated to Les Morts de la rue. A good deal of the "sans teeth" are future "dead of the street".
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
John Dowland (1563-1626) was a contemporary of Shakespeare. It is still uncertain whether his native town was London or Dublin. Similarly to William Byrd, he converted to catholicism.
"A Coy Toy" (date unknown to me) is here played by lutenist Brian Wright, Fellow of Trinity College of Music (London).
This is an excerpt from a lute concert in Sozopol, Bulgaria: • Four Pieces by John Do...
A distinguished performer for Renaissance music, Brian Wright is nonetheless a composer of modern pieces for the lute: www.modernlutem...
Monologue/poem read by actor;