I love both to read Shakespeare and watch live productions of his plays. A year or so ago year I went to a production of MacBeth at well known prestigious private college that had done great work in the past with Shakespeare productions. I did not know until I arrived that this would be a production using a "modern text" of MacBeth ...
Shakespeare's poetic prose "Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" was no more. Some modern "artist" transformed every line of the play, and what the actor spoke was this: "Life is nothing more than an illusion. It’s like a poor actor who struts and worries for his hour on the stage and then is never heard from again. Life is a story told by an idiot, full of noise and emotional disturbance but devoid of meaning."
"full of noise and emotional disturbance" lol ... It actually did become funny because at first the audience was confused and it was obvious that many of us were not pleased that someone had had the audacity to re-write Shakespeare in this way. But as the play progressed, it became more and more comical, with the audience laughing at some of the changes. The changes in the above soliloquy brought out a particularly uproarious response. Somehow the audience was not buying that "noise and emotional disturbance" quite captured what Shakespeare was trying evoke in the original work.
