The Aside

One of my favorite actors is Kevin Spacey, probably in large part due to his performance in American Beauty, one of my favorite movies. He is now staring in a Netflix political drama called House of Cards, which I just started watching and am really enjoying. So, what’s this have to do with Shakespeare, you ask? Spacey’s character (Francis J. Underwood) makes extensive use of the dramatic device known as The Aside, a device used extensively by Shakespeare. This is where a character directly addresses the audience, commenting about something going on, with the implied understanding that the other characters cannot hear it. Think of it as a sort of “head’s up” to the audience, and inside joke shared.

The House of Cards series makes extensive use of this device in a really great way. Like Shakespeare, the Spacey series often uses this to inject comedy (sometimes very dark comedy) or develop layers of complexity. Also, in the Spacey series, he does this really cool thing where he sometimes reverts back to his original, thick southern accent when speaking these aside’s to the camera, as opposed to when he is speaking with the characters, in which case he speaks the King’s English, clear and sharp. Spacey’s character hides his “real” voice most of the time (I guess the implication is that a heavy, country bumpkinesque southern drawl would not fly inside the beltway), but lets it all hang out when he speaks to us, the audience. We’re insiders and we’re special. Shakespeare did the same thing, all those years ago, once again proving that when it comes to art, there truly is nothing new under the sun (and thus proving that great art is never the WHAT of it, but rather the HOW).