Editor's Digest: Is this a golden age for Shakespeare?

“Is this a golden age for Shakespeare?”: Sarah Crompton, The Telegraph, December 4, 2013.

I’d credit one more factor: the rise of adult-targeted dramas on cable television. Rich, character-driven shows such as Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead and the goddaddy of them all, The Sopranos, have sparked a similar golden age in cable programming. In order to compete for the same demographic, theatres need material of equal caliber. Who will they bet on? The limited, inconsistent output of watered-down dramatists like David Lindsay Abaire and Sarah Ruhl?

Shakespeare, almost alone, hits the sweet spot between a new play and a revitalized classic. While Ibsen, Shaw, Strindberg, and O’Neill offer works of similar complexity in character and plot, with few exceptions (such as Ibsen’s timeless An Enemy of the People), their works are rooted to their eras. By contrast, a director can transplant Othello’s jealousy to any time, or employ a hot Hollywood actor and let Shakespeare’s writing captivate a modern audience of old and young alike.

(Photo: Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad from the recent Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet.)