Performing Shakespeare

GORDON EDELSTEIN: On a personal level, I am amazed, perhaps because in my previous job as artistic director we only did contemporary work, so this is my, since coming to Long Wharf is the first time that I've actually produced Shakespeare. So it is a new experience to me to see, to produce work that clearly catches the audience's spirit and soul and mind so deeply.

What the requirement is, is that you understand the text completely and as deeply as you possibly can from the point of view of the author. Try to understand what Shakespeare is doing and saying. Then you have to understand what it's doing and saying to you and what it might be doing and saying to this moment in time. You do that with any classic. That is, you always ask the question, or I think one ought to always ask the question, what does this play have to do with what it's like to be alive today? That's the same question you ask when you do the Greeks, the Romans, Moliere, Ibsen, Chekov, and of course Shakespeare. I believe that's the most important question to ask.