"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here." Or so says Ariel in William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Maybe that's a little dramatic? Maybe... ? At any rate, I'm grumpy! Again! I need a good remedy for it. And since there's a Shakespeare quote for just about everything (he's come up with a lot of common phrases) why not Shakespeare adaptions? I'm mostly grumpy because I can't do a "top 5" of anything because that implies decisions and ratings and how could I possibly list the definitive 5 of anything? So think of this, not as the best Shakespeare adaptions, but as five I think you ought to read because you might enjoy them.
Of course I had to include Atwood here. This is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, where well-known modern writers bring in their own interpretations of Shakespeare's classics. Jo Nesbø wrote Macbeth, Anne Tyler wrote The Taming of the Shrew, and Gillian Flynn will be coming out with Hamlet. (It was very tempting to include all of these, to be honest.) Hag-Seed is a modern retelling of The Tempest which gets very interestingly meta, where Felix - our Prospero - puts on an in text production of The Tempest. The writing is outstanding and the story - about revenge! enchantment! the theater !!! - is engaging. I definitely recommend this one.
I really love this book, simply because it's so much fun. This is a "chooseable-path adventure" where you can follow the story of Romeo and Juliet fairly straightforwardly down its normal path, or you can veer off into any number of wild, wacky directions and make a story unique and new. I had a great time with this, and while yes, it's maybe not a straight adaption in the strictest sense, it's still interesting and whimsical and a new way to engage with some very familiar Shakespearian characters.
This novel, which won the Pulitzer in 1992, is still a great adaption of King Lear. And am I cheating by including this, an older novel readers will likely A.) have already heard of and maybe read or B.) not care? Set in America - Iowa, specifically - we have not a king, but a wealthy farmer who decides to give his land to his three daughters. So we have the ups and downs of life on a farm, in a rural community - we have family tensions, dark secrets, and the deep connection to the land.
While reading Macbeth, have you ever thought: "This needs more ladies"? Why, I have, as well! (I tend to think that about everything.) Well Robin Talley delivers with a retelling of The Scottish Play set at a boarding school, where the main players are girls. And to make it even better, there's a female power couple who are, as you might have guessed, playing the roles of the Macbeths in this tale of dark ambition, and ruthlessness spiralling closer and closer to madness. There are even spirits!
And now we have what is probably my favorite Shakespeare adaption of all time, as well as one of my favorite plays. It's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. Which is full of witty wordplay and existentialism. I quote this a lot. At one time I had several big chunks of it memorized - seriously, for our unit on plays and theater in my senior AP english class, one of my friends and I performed a section from this (and also one from Angels in America - I had kind of forgotten how much fun that was...). It takes the two bumbling courtiers from Hamlet - the eponymous Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - and puts them in their own story. Hamlet is there, and really the plot hits most of the same beats, but it's just such a delight to read.
Waiting for Godot is what people bring up when talking about existentialism (think ol' Sartre), but this play is actually more representative of the philosophy. Just so you know. Also this is a movie starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman and you should DEFINITELY see it. I love it so much that I own in on VHS in this year of 2k18. Also last year there was a revival starring Daniel Radcliffe which I can only imagine was fantastic.
Bonus:
These are not really adaptions, but still quite fun. And who says I can't have 8 instead of 5?!
This takes popular songs and turns them into Shakespearian-style sonnets. If you're wondering, yes, Never Gonna Give You Up is in there.
This is literally just Star Wars but in the language of Shakespeare. Does that make it any less fun? I think not.
This is a graphic novel series that puts the characters of Shakespeare into a shared universe.
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