A Facelift for Shakespeare

A new translation effort aims to make all of Shakespeare’s plays comprehensible to today’s audiences

Source: A Facelift for Shakespeare


I once interviewed an actor playing Hamlet who preferred using Shakespeare's language in a production where the rest of the cast played a revised text. He felt the text was perfectly understandable if it was capably played, and that removing Shakespeare's language constrained him from fully inhabiting the character.

I sympathize with McWhorter's points insofar as reading the plays; but if I'm watching a performance, then I think the music of the words, and the actors' skill (movement, intonation, characterization) will convey the meaning.

But the question remains: who would fardels bear??

 

 

Michael E Brown @brownstudy