Shakespeare Revitalised

Press, Issue 30997, 1 March 1966, Page 3

Shakespeare Revitalised

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Feb. 28. “Comedy of Errors”, a littleknown and fragile play, had made more money for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company than any other, the director of the company (Mr Clifford Williams) said in Wellington to" day.

Mr Williams, a 39-year-dd Welshman, first directed the play five years ago and since then it been done eight

times—three times at Stratford, twice in London and twice on tour of provincial centres and a world tour.

“1 thought I had finally put it to bed last year,” he said today.

The play was little known, he said, and not very popular before the company did it Academics were not partial to it It had first been presented at Stratford in 1937. Money-maker

“We did it In a unique way. It was not a matter of revitalising it” he said. “It has made more money for the company than any other play we’ve done, ‘Hamlet’ and ‘King Lear’ included.”

Mr Williams will be in Wellington for a week. Mr Gareth Morgan, who is producing “Comedy of Errors” for the New Zealand Theatre Centre, has acted in the play and worked with Mr Williams as assistant director. 9

The centre’s ’Wellington season opens on Wednesday night.

Mr Williams said that the treatment of Shakespeare’s plays today was different from that of 10 years ago and would be different in 1976.

“We believe it is simply) vital to look at any classical 1 play and regard it as being) written by a living dramatist.” he said. “We have to know what it meant to audiences in 1600 and at the same time reconcile it with what people think today.” This feeling had led the company to a new view of Shakespeare’s history plays which they saw as a continuing pattern reflecting the development of political England away from the baronial to the democratic. The plays were compressed and cut and later added to. “To our astonishment, this did not produce any outcry

from the academics,” Mr Williams said.

"Shakespeare wouldn’t have minded —he was monkeying with the works of every other dramatist in sight.”