Which play by Shakespeare should I read first?

Christ, I hope it's you that's out of touch.

...

Watch productions of the plays and read the one you enjoyed the most. Then read the most famous ones so at least you know where all the sayings and idioms come from.

Just watch some of the movie adaptations.

I'm not really big into ancient or classical literature (pre-19th century), and certainly can't honestly say I've read a lot of Shakespeare, but I did read Hamlet and it was pretty fucking awesome. It exhibits the intellectual depth and verbal artistry of literary fiction while also having an action-packed fast-paced super-market-paperback-tier-for-low-brow-short attention-span-having-(pop-fiction)-readers plot (yes the penultimate "word" in that sentence was an adjective).

youtube.com/watch?v=85TE0K5fgJM

None. You should watch one instead.

>Watch productions

lol no

Only philistines prefer Shakespeare on the stage to Shakespeare on the page.

Hamlet or MacBeth, I figure. I find Hamlet more memorable, but for some reason I'm inclined to think I prefer MacBeth. Isn't it awesome that us reading his plays now is pretty much like someone reading something we write today but around 2400AD? Pretty fuckin' badass.

Horrendous opinion. Experience it as intended or don't bother.

King Lear. Go read King Lear.

That play gave me cancer. I wouldn't recommend it.

Macbeth, then Richard III, then R&J

Those are the pleb plays

>Experience it as intended

Shakespeare didn't intend any particular production you retard. Watching Shakespeare performed just narrows his vision.

Hamlet can only be acted in one way: only when you read it can you grasp his complexity.

read the tempest and then watch Prospero's books.

To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.

Titus Andronicus is pretty good but it's like the black sheep of his plays. Although I'd also recommend it, it's Shakespeare in his most accessible form while also being a devastating story of revenge. Not the most effective use of betrayal or vengeance in his works, but it's probably going to hook people in if they're skeptical of where to begin.

Read Taming of the Shrew.

>reading shakespeare

>Hamlet can only be acted in one way

Wew. No.

>putting line breaks on a prose speech

tbf that's probably just the way the text reformatted through copy-paste.

King Lear is his best tragedy, Othello is his worst.

??????? there is so much wrong with this post
>implying you, or anyone, knows what shakespeare "intended"
>implying plays ought never be read as texts
>implying all performances are identical
jesus christ you've got shit opinions