In “Death of the Masterpiece,” Istaara Amjad ’28 explores our ever-changing relationship to art in the modern world. 

Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.

A vivid scene assembles itself in your mind’s eye as you recite the verses, eloquent rhyme and evocative meter sweeping you off your feet. You feel connected to the past; you understand the human condition on a greater level. You have experienced Shakespeare: your life is complete. 

…or so the long-suffering English teacher promises the room full of bleary-eyed teenagers, attempting to convince them that Shakespeare is indeed worth their time and effort, if only they took the time to understand it. 

Yet Shakespeare’s plays were not originally a part of what we now consider “high culture” —  esteemed works that high schoolers must pore over in English classes to prove that they indeed have been educated. In Shakespeare’s time, crowds flocked to the Globe Theatre, gaining entry to the pit for merely a penny. Audiences talked, laughed and cheered at the actors. It was not just a performance; it was a conversation. 

Much has changed in our interaction with Shakespeare’s works: the actor’s performance, the audience’s experience and the very role of the script itself. And so the question arises: how do we embody the true spirit of Shakespeare in the 21st century?

Director Vishal Bhardwaj’s answer to this question is found in the power and politics of contemporary India, amidst Bollywood’s distinctive song and dance sequences. The director’s trilogy of tragedies – where King Duncan presides over the Mumbai underworld of the ‘90s (“Maqbool” 2003), Othello’s melodrama plays out in a mix of domestic intimacy and violent local politics (“Omkara” 2006) and Hamlet’s father is killed by insurgents in the disputed state of Kashmir (“Haider” 2014) —  subvert the perception of Shakespearean works as the West’s heritage alone, revered yet unrelatable to non-European audiences.  

Postcolonial adaptations are a testament to Shakespeare’s universality. In Bhardwaj’s cinematic world, Hamlet’s existential refrain “to be or not to be” is posed as a question of the Kashmiris’ torn statehood. “Hum hain, ke hum nahi? / Do we exist, or do we not?” Haider asks.  We need not look to a distant past for Shakespeare’s themes to hold meaning to us; power, passion and politics are not the domain of medieval Europe alone. 

Baz Luhrmann’s (in)famous 1996 adaptation, “Romeo + Juliet,” presents a different argument. Featuring guns, pop songs, Mercutio in drag and Shakespearean verse in a bizarre whirlwind of sound, colour and fast-paced editing, it was criticized for attempting to pander to the “pseudo-culture of young people.”

But if Shakespeare aimed to entertain the masses, there is no audience more fit to be entertained than young people and no genre more suited to entertain them than the rom-com. 

Think “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999), “She’s The Man” (2006) and “Get Over It” (2001) —  we grew up watching (and rewatching) the highschool rom-coms of the late nineties and early 2000s, but we rarely think of them as the Shakespearean adaptations that they are: the above films follow the plays “Taming of the Shrew,” “Twelfth Night” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” respectively. 

This string of (very loose) Shakespeare adaptations is fascinating. The juvenile social world of smooth-talking social butterflies, high school sports teams and prom seems to be the farthest one can get from the world of Shakespearean drama. Are these so-called adaptations simply misguided efforts to intellectualise H0llywood’s mass marketing endeavours? One could argue that the rom-com genre would not exist as we know it without Shakespeare. But they are also unapologetically earnest: from serenading crushes publicly to deception-based hijinks to the optimism in their happy endings. Most importantly, they are a thoroughly enjoyable watch. What’s more Shakespearean than that? 

In January, Stanford saw its own novel take on Shakespeare in the form of The Shakespearean Crossdressers Support Group, an original play written and directed by Cary Sasso ’25. Spotlighting a support group for the characters, the play offered a deeper insight at the women in Shakespeare’s world who shared experiences of dressing as men in their stories. 

The very premise of the play promises conjecture:  a Shakespeare purist might raise their eyebrows at the retelling of the characters’ stories and identities from a modern lens, now involving sexuality, gender roles and sexual assault. Yet amidst the melodramatic rants and hilariously passive-aggressive arguments, the audience discovers empathy and understanding for the human stories at the heart of these plots — in a way no stale classroom conversation could. Could this be the essence of Shakespeare?

I’m not sure. The more pertinent question is: does it matter? 

Scholars widely believe an earlier version of “Hamlet” was written by playwright Thomas Kyd, whereas “Romeo and Juliet” was based on a poem by poet Arthur Brooks and the story was already popular in Europe before Shakespeare’s version made it to the stage. 

Shakespeare’s original audiences didn’t appreciate the playwright for his literary ingenuity in coming up with stories no one had ever thought of before. They watched his plays for the same reason you enjoy watching a film adaptation of your favorite book – for the same reason classical myths have been adapted countless times into books, musicals and films. You know the facts. You know how the story ends. The joy is in how the story is told. 

How, then, do we preserve the essence of Shakespeare?

By letting go of the compulsion to do so in the first place. As a society, we have a tendency to idolize: we want to place things on a pedestal, pristine and protected. But in doing so, it becomes static. Art should be experienced, and above all, it should be fun. So the weirder Shakespeare gets, the better.