"And I just think that to introduce an unknown Shakespeare is thrilling, too - not to do Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, to do the richer Shakespeare. People will come to this and not know the story"
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There is a little provocation baked into Taymor's excitement: Shakespeare is supposed to be the safest brand in the cultural marketplace, yet she wants to treat him like a discovery again. The phrase "unknown Shakespeare" is almost a dare, puncturing the idea that the canon is a fixed playlist of Greatest Hits. When she rejects Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, she is not dismissing them so much as naming the trap: these plays arrive pre-digested, smothered by school assignments, film versions, and inherited opinions. You don't watch them, you recognize them.
"Richer Shakespeare" signals a director's hunger for complexity over familiarity. Taymor is arguing that obscurity can be an artistic asset, because it returns suspense to material that has been flattened by repetition. "People will come to this and not know the story" is the key line: she's not selling Shakespeare as cultural literacy or prestige, but as narrative experience. Not knowing becomes a feature, not a deficit. It allows staging, design, and performance to do their original job - to surprise, to unsettle, to make the audience lean forward instead of reciting along.
The subtext is also practical: in an ecosystem that rewards recognizable IP, Taymor is insisting that risk can be marketed, too. Her confidence rests on a director's belief that Shakespeare's value isn't the famous soliloquies; it's the engine underneath them. Unknown, he stops being a monument and becomes live theater again.
"Richer Shakespeare" signals a director's hunger for complexity over familiarity. Taymor is arguing that obscurity can be an artistic asset, because it returns suspense to material that has been flattened by repetition. "People will come to this and not know the story" is the key line: she's not selling Shakespeare as cultural literacy or prestige, but as narrative experience. Not knowing becomes a feature, not a deficit. It allows staging, design, and performance to do their original job - to surprise, to unsettle, to make the audience lean forward instead of reciting along.
The subtext is also practical: in an ecosystem that rewards recognizable IP, Taymor is insisting that risk can be marketed, too. Her confidence rests on a director's belief that Shakespeare's value isn't the famous soliloquies; it's the engine underneath them. Unknown, he stops being a monument and becomes live theater again.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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