As You Like It

Over the weekend I attended a production of King Lear at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and was struck by Will's endless malleability. He is all things to all people, and in this case, bent obligingly to an interpretation of Lear's usurpers as wiseguy goombahs, pretenders to the throne who bow and scrape with one hand resting on a shiv. It's so head-smackingly obvious, but still, it's by no means a definitive interpretation. In fact, it's pretty clear that unlike the man who, "in his time plays many parts," Shakespeare keeps on evolving long after his time. As long as the English language appears onstage, I doubt a definitive Shakespeare production will ever emerge. Drop him anywhere in the last half-millennium--or heck, just throw a dart at any decade in the 20th century--and somehow he works.