Does SHAKESPEARE Qualify for Focus in OUR CURRENT "DRAMA OF THE AGES"?

By Guest Column -- Roberta N. Tuthill —— Bio and Archives October 31, 2016

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To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them...? That paradoxical question posed by Shakespeare, in his play: Hamlet, has seriously-consequential portent for the current, multi-dimensional dilemma of our Ship of State!

Much Ado About Nothing is the Bard's comedic play, while today's situations are far removed from comedy! To "go with the flow" in the peaceful setting of a serene stream is a delightful scenario. Caught in the flow near a precipitous waterfall portends irreversible disaster. "TO BE"; OR "NOT TO BE?" may be posed as a compound-question's opportunity, when set up as a proverbial "straw man" for dramatized "fisticuffs," in this hour of serious debate and consequences! On the other hand, MUCH ADO about nothing, with crises all around, can put us in a position of "bidding ADIEU' to all that we hold dear! Will we disregard the Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor that launched America's Great Experiment in We-the-People Rule? The issue of slavery was eventually dealt with on the battlefield, in uniforms blue or grey, but all the spilt blood was red, regardless of skin color, still a basis of division! In the first paragraph of his Gettysburg Address (11/19/1863), Lincoln dealt with the most crucial issue of our Nation's origin, "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." His conclusion then challenges this generation to "here highly resolve that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth"?