Mark Rylance, the first artistic director Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, between 1995 and 2005. suggests theatre rap productions of Shakespeare plays. He says Shakespeare’s precise words should be less revered, and compares the Bard’s use of language to the rappers of today.
Rylance says Shakespeare should not be worshipped on an intellectual level, saying too many performers speak his lines too slowly. Instead, he said, actors should learn from a generation of young people growing up on rap music, to reconnect with the quick-speaking emotion Shakespeare originally intended.
“If I have a general criticism, which is true of my Shakespeare acting and most Shakespeare acting I hear, is that it’s too slow,” he said. “It’s too reverent. It’s like taking a rap song in 400 years from now, that we think is really wonderful, and deciding it should be said slowly so all the lovers of rap can hear every word.”
He said Shakespeare did not intend to “write literature”, claiming it is as bizarre to read his work on paper as it would be to study the Rolling Stones as poets.”To take a song like Honky Tonk Woman and study it for its literature is fair enough, but if you’re going to then revere it as literature you’re doing a disservice to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards who would like it to be revered as a great rock’n’ roll song.”