One writer beautifully captures the mood of most audiences at Shakespeare performances as "reverently unreceptive," "gratified that they have come, and gratified that they now may go." One need only take a look at the faces in the lobby as the audience files out--the gray-haired gent's polite grin, the thirty-something couple's set jaws, the adolescent girl's petulant weariness - with general interest oriented suspiciously more towards getting to the rest room and planning where to go for a bite than in discussing the play....Before you object to his proposal, I recommend reading McWhorter's whole argument.
The problem is whether Shakespeare's English is the language we speak at all. English of the late 1500s presents us with a tricky question: At what point do we concede that substantial comprehension across the centuries has become too much of a challenge to expect of anyone but specialists?
The foremost writer in the English language is little more than a symbol in the actual thinking lives of most of us for the simple reason that we cannot understand what the man is saying....
I submit ... that Shakespeare be performed in translations into modern English. I do not mean the utilitarian running translations in textbooks, but richly considered ones, executed by artists equipped to channel Shakespeare to the modern listener with passion, respect and care.
One commenter on his post, "Simon Greenwood," says:
Half the appeal of Shakespeare is that it's inaccessible, though. If it were possible to understand what was going on then it'd no longer be on its special perch but on the same level as contemporary art. Going to see Shakespeare would no longer be a rite of flagellation to prove your place in the cultural elite but instead directly comparable to going to the movies or watching the boob tube. It may even move some theaters out of the hallowed ground of squeaking by on donations, a la NPR, and instead being crass low-brow self-sustaining businesses.
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