Just saw something online about this new book which is out now. William Shakespeare's Star Wars which basically retells Episode IV A New Hope as though it were a Shakespeare play, with everyone, even R2-D2 delivering Shakespeare monologues. I must say, it certainly sounds like an interesting idea. Anyone have this yet and like to share their opinions?
While I won't have a copy to call my own until next week, a preview copy has been floating around the office for about a month and I've read some, but not all, of it. I think it's okay. The play is a mash of authentic Shakespearean lines (with a Star Wars gloss of names and places) and cod early-modern English -- or, rather, what the general public thinks early-modern English was like. I think William Henry Ireland's two forged Shakespeare plays (Vortigern and Rowena and Henry II) felt more authentically Shakespeare than what I read of Verily, A New Hope. The presentation of the book, on the other hand, is fantastic. The woodcut artwork to dramatize familiar scenes is very effective. It's a neat novelty, and if this were performed at a Shakespeare Festival I'd be interested in seeing it. And Star Trek fans will forever wonder what the text was like in its original Klingon.
I don't know. The best part of that preview was the cover drawing of Shakespearean Yoda. I'll be very surprised if he does.
"...Mayhap, Gentle Uncle, for I was, in soothe, deserving of thy prescription for an expedient soujourn to Ye-Olde-Tosche-Station-by-the-Thames, as I fancied a goodly number of Powere Converterse...do not balk or knap, and away without tarry I shall fly... ...sorry I could NOT not...so sorry...
LUKE: Villain, what hast Obi-Wan done? VADER: That which was not told to you. LUKE: He said thou hast undone my father. VADER: No... *I* have done thy mother.
LUKE: Nay, Knave!...verily, you lie!... VADER: Gaze Inwards, Bumpkin!...you will see the truth of it! LUKE: Hold, I would cut off my arm if I but believed your scurrilous lies--oh, umm...yes...indeed...seems that eventuality has come to pass... VADER: Ah, like the mother...a vigorous volley of verbosity... (With apologies to "V") Zion, I thought your answer was funny as hell!!!!!