STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE
» sir,-Miss Ngaio Marsh has lately "spoken ("on the other side idolatry") of the performances of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company. Many other high-level. radio speakers have _Sirhilarly enthused, But why? ' Thave heard many of the Shakespeare plays on the air, text in hand. I find that the players leave out large slices of good Shakespeare, insert words of their own, and alter Shakespeare’s words -seemingly at will. Then, too, they almost entirely ignore the metre-so much so that one unfamiliar with the plays would usually be hard put to it to pronounce whether the scene was in prose or blank verse. The actors seem agreed that sweet William was a dramatist and humorist, but obviously they’ve never heard of blank verse. I have read all the plays, some very many times over, and have always understood that Shakespeare is thought by some to be a poet of sorts as well as comedian and tragedian. But evidently I’m quite wrong, for do net these vaunted actors and actresses assure us by their speeches that-like M. Jour-dain-Shakespeare wrote prose all his life without knowing it? Give me Shakespeare on my shelves, where I can have him uncut, undistorted, unaltered, unimproved, unprosified. un-
spoilt!
WE ARE NOT AMUSED
(Gisborne),
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530424.2.12.7
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 719, 24 April 1953, Page 5
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208STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 719, 24 April 1953, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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