I know what you're thinking: Shakespeare, ugh! Is this one of those take-your-medicine, eat-your-spinach, good-for-you stories I should watch but really don't WANT to watch? Well, fear not! Ira Glass, creator and host of the popular public radio program "This American Life," has felt your pain since high school."It was hard to read in school," Glass said.
"It seemed like, Oh, that's what smart people like.I felt, there must be something here."And then, in 2014, Glass attended a production of "King Lear" in New York's Central Park, starring John Lithgow.
After the play, Glass tweeted out: "Shakespeare: not good.No stakes, not relatable.
I think I'm realizing: Shakespeare sucks.""I thought it was obvious that it was a joke, but people did not take it as a joke," he said.And the backlash was immediate: "Ira Glass is a philistine for saying Shakespeare sucks" (The New Republic); "The internet is freaking out about Ira Glass saying Shakespeare sucks" (The Atlantic); "Ira Glass hates Shakespeare" (Chicago Tribune). Glass said, "But I think that's the problem with Shakespeare.
I think, like, if you dare to say anything bad about it, you feel like, Oh, I must be dumb." Revenge and murder and treachery"If Shakespeare saw a lot of his productions, he would say he sucked," said Farah Karim-Cooper."I don't think Shakespeare would ever have been able, in his own time, to put a four-hour 'Hamlet' on his stage."And that's from someone who has devoted her career to Shakespeare.
Karim-Cooper, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washingto, D.C., says Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" spoke directly to her: "I think as a Pakistani-American teenager, I couldn't believe that Shakespeare actually understood my family.Because my grandmother had an arranged marriage, and then my mother was told she has to marry someone that they choose.
And she's like, No, I'm marrying this man.And she married my dad who was a sea captain.
So I was like, How does he know about...