A Year of Shakespeare

Public Radio International

While it’s safe to say that not everyone loves Shakespeare, few would go as far as to suggest that the modern theater is being undermined by too great an appreciation for the Bard.

Yet according to this NPR story, an internet meme has gathered momentum proposing that very thing. A closer examination, however, reveals that any aspersion cast by the opinion has more to say about theater managers than about the indisputably greatest playwright who ever lived.

And to an extent it makes sense; by overrelying on a singular cow to deliver the cream, theater houses are not only dulling audiences with steady doses of the already familiar, they are also neglecting all the other works that rarely get performed as a result.

I suppose the same argument holds in arenas like classical music where Bach, Beethoven & Mozart tend to crowd out all the rest. But is there any other field where one titanic individual dominates his rivals to such an extent as Shakespeare? Should he be throttled back to allow other neglected voices to shine?

It’s an interesting idea to say the least. You can read more and comment on it yourself HERE.

This entry was posted on 2014/04/17 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Performance, Shakespeareana with tags Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.