Public Theater

Theater review by Raven SnookJacob Ming-Trent has come to preach salvation in his vivacious memoir How Shakespeare Saved My Life. He leads us, his congregation, through a "testimony" based on the life he has led, drawing guidance from a large tome onstage—not the Bible, but the Bard. The morning after his father abandoned his family, 12-year-old Jacob walks into the wrong class and is tasked by the teacher with delivering the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V aloud, an experience that fills him with power and purpose. That world-Shakespearing discovery sets this troubled youth on a new path to become a classical actor, with several dramatic detours along the way: parental estrangement, homelessness, depression, drugs. How Shakespeare Changed My Life | Photograph: Courtesy HanJie Chow Ming-Trent’s project began as a series of personal anecdotes before being synthesized into its more ambitious current form. How Shakespeare Saved My Life explores major issues: the impact of generational trauma, the effects of racism and sizeism in the theatre industry, the liberation that comes with forgiveness. It also interpolates passages from Shakespeare and connects the Elizabethan master to more recent writers such as Biggie Smalls, Tupac Shakur and James Baldwi; Ming-Trent even spits some original rhymes, inspired by the beats of his life, with a bit of poetic license (which seems only fair, since Shakespeare took plenty of that with his histories).  How Shakespeare Changed My...