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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Sam Winklebleck reads from 'Macbeth' at a recent meeting of a Shakespeare circle in the Sunnyvale Library.
Shakespeare's words fill library
By Sam Scott
When Norma Medlin was 10 years old, she watched a movie of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Bard grabbed her and never let go. Medlin likes Shakespeare with a passion many Americans reserve for sports or shopping. Every year, she goes to Ashland, Ore., for the Shakespeare festival. Every week, she studies plays with the Friday Shakespeare Club of Santa Cruz. And now every month or so, she gets her fix in her hometown at the monthly Shakespeare circle that meets in the Sunnyvale public library.
"Shakespeare is so timeless. What he says speaks to basic human feelings. The more you read it, the more you see," Medlin says. "It never gets old."
As Medlin reads aloud from Macbeth at a meeting of the Sunnyvale Library group, her love of the play beams. There's no posing here. She finishes a passage, shakes her head with a smile and gives an awe-inspired sigh. Her eyes sparkle.
Others in the circle of people meeting this Monday night are less devout. Some come wanting to know what is creating all the fuss about this man, dead nearly 400 years.
"We're trying to see what we're missing," says Vivian Archer, who is attending with a neighbor. "I'm not sure we've found it yet."
Mary Walsh, the librarian who started the group, thinks Shakespeare can be enjoyed by anyone from bookworms to boneheads.
"It's amazing how immediately his plays are intelligible and gripping even if you just read them."
"He's a researcher and a explorer and a responder. He's an artist as well. That's his marvel."
Walsh, a confirmed Shakespeare fan since she read The Merchant of Venice in high school, celebrated the playwright's birthday with an informal gathering this past spring. Those who showed up read and discussed the bard casually. The meeting's popularity encouraged her to schedule another one. More success prompted another meeting--this time focused on one play, The Taming of the Shrew. Henry V followed the next month, and now this most recent meeting on Macbeth.
Walsh says the gatherings are unstructured. People can read and say what they want. The group votes on what play to study next. From time to time, she does nudge things along.
The Shakespeare circle next meets on Nov. 29 to discuss Henry IV, Part 1. Medlin might not be there. Though also a lover of Shakespeare, he knows that he can always read another day. The 'Niners versus Packers on Monday Night Football, however, won't wait.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
