2006年NPR美国国家公共电台十一月-Could Shakespeare Survive in Hollywood?

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From NPR News, this is All Things Considered, I'm Michelle Norris.
And I'm Robert Siegel. Though he has been dead for more than 390 years, William Shakespeare is still selling big. Over a million of his books are sold every year; there've been more than 600 film or television adaptations of his work including animated¹ versions. His likeness² and his famous quotes are used to sell everything from Budweiser to luxury cars. If he were alive today, Shakespeare would probably be at the center of a multimedia³ empire. NPR's Elizabeth Blair has been asking around, what a Shakespeare Incorporated might look like.

If Shakespeare were alive, he might be in real estate.
"He was a capitalist, there's no doubt about that."
Longtime Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart says Shakespeare made some money as a writer over the course of his career, but his real wealth seems to have come from owning shares in the Globe Theatre, as well as a substantial amount of property. Shakespeare bought up large tracks of land when English property laws changed and common land converted to private ownership.
"He was involved in closures, land enclosures which although very profitable for the wealthy men who were able to participate in these ventures, it was not good news for the ordinary towns' person. So for those of us who'd like to think of him as, perhaps, one of the world's great humanists, however, the picture is a little darker.
"I see my reputation is at stake; My fame is shrewdly gaud."
"Oh, then beware, those wounds heal ill of men who give themselves."
But Patrick Stewart says Shakespeare Incorporated would also make a lot of money from its namesake's writing. Today, Shakespeare's works are in the public domain⁴, but were he alive, he would be collecting thousands of dollars in royalties⁵ just as Neil Simon does, from the hundreds of productions of his plays in the US alone. One theatre director in Denver, for example, said that his company's five-week run of Measure for Measure had ticket sales of 470,000 dollars. So Shakespeare's royalty⁶ would be about 10 percent or 47,000 dollars. That's just one theatre in a medium-sized market. Shakespeare's company would pay close attention to which shows were big hits. Michael Kahn is the artistic⁷ director of the Shakespeare theatre in Washington D.C:
"I don't know whether he would, how many performances of Titus Andronicus and Henry VIII he'd be doing over the years. I hope he wouldn't though, I hope he wouldn't keep putting on Romeo and Juliet, I hope he wouldn’t. Actually, let Coriolanus show up every once in a while"
"What's the matter, you dissentious rogues⁸, That, rubbing the poor itch⁹ of your opinion, Make yourselves scabs?"
"We have ever your good word."
"He that will give good words to thee will flatter beneath abhorring¹⁰."
Then there is the publishing arm of Shakespeare Incorporated which would sell several million books a year. Shakespeare titles sold more than 775,000 copies in the US last year. Shakespeare's translated into over a hundred languages, so publishing royalties would rake in at least ten million dollars a year. Like Steven King, Shakespeare has spawned¹¹ a cottage industry of film and television productions. They don't always make money, but a little like Woody Allen movies. They are seen as prestige opportunities for big stars, say Mel Gibson, or Leonardo DiCaprio to show their acting¹² chops. Kenneth Branagh has completely immersed themselves in the Shakespeare canon as an actor and director. If Shakespeare were alive, Branagh probably wouldn't have been nominated for an Oscar, for best adapted screenplay for his unabridged version of Hamlet. Then again, the bard¹³ himself would be vulnerable to charges of plagiarism¹⁴. Barbara Hodgdon is author of the Shakespeare Trade.
"Only three plays are plays without plots that he borrowed from somewhere else. So if he were writing in that way today, he would certainly need a team of lawyers to handle the lawsuits¹⁵."
" The first thing we do, let's kill the lawyers."
They say there is nothing new on television with his penchant¹⁶ for stealing ideas. Maybe that would be Shakespeare's medium of choice. That's Gary Taylor's prediction. He is the author of "Reinventing Shakespeare", and a professor at Florida State University.
"I used to tell my students that he'd probably be writing for the sopranos, because that's all about men, and power struggles between men, which are Shakespeare's great subject. I now think that maybe he'd be writing instead for Deadwood.
"Deadwood" is HBO's popular western, often described as Shakespearean in style.
"Because he specializes in stories about the past, and a sort of a mythology¹⁷ of the past."
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother."
But maybe Hollywood wouldn't go for Shakespeare at all.
"If Shakespeare were alive, would we hire him? You know it depends who represented him."
David Milch is the creator of Deadwood, he used to lecture on English literature at Yale. Milch says, unless Shakespeare had a really powerful agent, he wouldn't even take his calls.
"Mike Ovich calls, that's something I gotta pay attention to. I could tell you something prettier, but that's the truth of it."
He'd also need an influential¹⁸ manager. Burny Bronstein agreed to play along and pretend that Shakespeare was his client.
"I never would have known Romeo and Juliet would have been a hit, so I would have just got them a publisher and not paid any attention to it. But then the reviews came in, and I started paying a lot of attention to him. And I'd say do you have any other ideas, and he would say: How about the Merchant of Venice. And I would say uh-huh, a guy who sells bathing suit in Venice, California, that sounds very good for television."
"Signior Antonio, many a time and oft In the Rialto you have reviled¹⁹ me about my moneys and my usances: Still have I borne it with a patient shrug²⁰, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe."
Shakespeare was a crowd pleaser and a shrewd businessman. He might be another Spielberg, running a company like DreamWorks, turning out romantic comedies and historical dramas. Shakespeare Incorporated would no doubt have a marketing²¹ division that would conduct focus groups, famously hostile to dark endings, a hallmark of Shakespeare's dramas. Michael Kahn hopes he wouldn't bend to the pressure and change his scripts.
"And I hope he wouldn't give up his artistic vision. However, would he live happily ever after? I know he wouldn't"
But Hollywood is pretty forceful when it comes to those happy endings. A few years ago when Tim Blake Nelson directed a film adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello called O, the producers tried to get him to change the ending, so that Desdemona lived.
"I was able because we were adapting a Shakespeare play to say: Fine, go ahead and change the ending, and have her live, and I'll take my name off it, and you'll be the ones who change Shakespeare. And since we had that gorilla²² in the room, they weren't gonna do that."
Forbes magazine once estimated conservatively, that if there were a Shakespeare estate, it would earn about 15 million dollars a year. If Shakespeare were alive and aggressively marketing his work, he would be worth a lot more than that. So imagine him, in his mansion²³ in Connecticut, going over his portfolio²⁴, perhaps considering a takeover from Time Warner or the Weinstein Company. On the other hand, as Hollywood insider Berney Bronstein put it: Shakespeare? He’s too talented to be successful in today's market. Elizabeth Blair, NPR news.
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gaud
A gaudy²⁵ or showy ornament²⁶ or trinket.
dissentious
好争论的,争吵的
scab
A person regarded as contemptible²⁷.
【俚语】 恶棍：被蔑视为无赖之人
rake in
迅速取得
bard
吟游诗人
penchant
A definite liking²⁸; a strong inclination²⁹.See Synonyms³⁰ at predilection³¹
偏爱：强烈的倾向；嗜好参见 predilection
oft
adv.
常常, 再三
revile
辱骂, 斥责
usance
[商]票据期限,汇票兑现期限,财产收益
Othello
《奥赛罗》(莎士比亚四大悲剧之一)
gorilla
大猩猩, 壮而残暴的男人, <俚>歹徒(尤指使用暴力者)