Earlier this month, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival commissioned thirty-six playwrights to “translate” Shakespearean plays into modern English. Not everyone is happy about this. However, Sheila T. Cavanagh over at The New Republic argues there is nothing wrong with modernizing Shakespeare. While updated versions of Shakespeare traditionally focus on settings and costumes rather than language, it is no different than the long history of “molding, melding, and adapting Shakespeare’s original texts.”
