More On Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Modern Translations of The Bard's Plays

Last week Broadwayworld reported on a Wall Street Journal piece by linguist John McWhorter about how The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has would soon be announcing that it has commissioned translations of all 39 of William Shakespeare's plays into modern English.

McWhorter noted, 'Shakespeare's English is so far removed from the English of 2015 that it often interferes with our own comprehension," and gave several examples.

That announcement has come and has naturally stirred a great deal of discussion among the nation's theatre lovers.

In today's New York Times, Professor James Shapiro of Columbia University chimes in with an op ed piece opposing the idea.

He notes that although the company says they remain committed to producing Shakespeare's plays using the original texts, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the University of Utah and Orlando Shakespeare Theater are among the venues who have already expressed interest in the new translations.

'However well intended," Shapiro writes, "this experiment is likely to be a waste of money and talent, for it misdiagnoses the reason that Shakespeare's plays can be hard for playgoers to follow. The problem is not the often knotty language; it's that even the best directors and actors - British as well as American - too frequently offer up Shakespeare's plays without themselves having a firm enough grasp of what his words mean."

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