![]() ![]() But you can not take "To be or not to be” out of Act III. You can set Merry Wives of Windsor on a spaceship, you can turn Beatrice and Benedick into hippies, you can reimagine The Tempest as a sex farce. ![]() But perhaps more significant, to the world of theater anyway, is that the production, directed by Lynsey Turner, decided to move the melancholy Dane’s most famous monologue to the top of the show, instead of keeping it in Act III where, many people believe, it belongs.īlasphemy! Especially over there, where Shakespeare is infused into the blood of every Briton upon birth. ![]() That is indeed happening right now, a seismic event unto itself. Yes, let’s first acknowledge the faint whining sound that’s made its way all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, which is the screams of Cumberbitches waiting outside the Barbican theater in London’s West End, hoping to catch a glimpse of Cumberbatch like he was a Beatle or something. Which, unfortunately, is exactly what the much-ballyhooed production of Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch was trying to do. Meaning, don’t fuck with "To be or not to be.” But! There are limits to what society will tolerate when it comes to fiddling around with Shakespeare’s most precious writing. ( Dreaming Shakespeare was a highlight of the ’04-’05 Boston College Theatre Department season, just saying.) And that’s all fine, because Shakespeare’s texts belong to all of us, the whole world, so we are free to do with them what we wish. Shakespeare plays have been set in all kinds of different time periods, directors have done gender-bending casting, playwrights and dramaturgs have hacked up his plays and reformed them into other things. Shakespeare has, for decades, if not centuries, been messed with.
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