Marowitz Shakespeare

Having compared an audience to a stopped clock in his introduction to this volume, Marowitz shows the reader the background to these adaptations and of the spirit in which they were made.

The 'clock' has neither been thrown out nor has it been disembowelled and turned into a more reliable, battery-run model: it ha been shaken. Marowitz treats Shakespeare's plays in the same way, never losing sight of their importance. but equally avoiding the trap of revering them to death. Using the gifts that have made him an internatonally acclaimed playwright and director, he has dynamically rethought these classics, transforming them into entirely new creations that stand in their own right, but are still nourished by the spirits of the originals.

These plays by Marowitz have been studied and performed around the world and seriously engage with the question of what Shakespeare would have done if asked to adapt them for the 20th century.