PERFORMANCE: Elites Exploit Shakespeare with an Orwellian Distortion

via Sarah Hoyt. Lots to chew on here—kudos to Richard Bledsoe

Great Caesar’s Ghost!

“…I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have, by the very cunning of the scene,
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ…
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”
-William Shakespeare

Part of the miraculous achievement of playwright William Shakespeare is his depiction of universal principles through the actions of his particular characters. These enduring insights make it possible to set his plays in practically any time, and any place, despite the specifics of their plots.

We’ve seen the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet performed as song and dance in a New York City ghetto. King Lear enacted as a feudal Japanese epic. Young Orson Welles was hailed as a genius for re-imagining The Scottish Play as…

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