“Polishing Shakespeare”- A Witty War for Hearts and Minds

What seems like beneficence turns out to be strategic trivializing of American culture

By Alix Cohen

While 53% of Americans believe Shakespeare is one of the greatest playwrights of all time and 47% have studied a play by him in school or college, a great many remain put off or intimidated by The Bard. Productions have increasingly been set in other eras or locales in order to be more accessible/palatable to audiences. Contemporary music is added. Costumes can be flamboyant. Some “adjust” language. Novelty rules.

In 2015, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced 36 playwrights would “translate” William Shakespeare’s 39 plays into modern English as part of a three-year commissioned project entitled Play on! All 36 are completed.

The Play: Ms. Branch (Kate Levy) is artistic director of a well known, not for profit, regional Shakespeare theater. Like all arts organizations, hers is under siege. When slick, dot.com billionaire Grant (Brian Dykstra) offers considerable funds for rewriting and producing the Bard’s entire canon, she perceives the gift as manna from Heaven.

Janet, a struggling playwright with multiple degrees (Kate Siahaan-Rigg), has been invited to “translate” a history play. She’s aghast, presuming the job requires dumbing down. “But how is this a thing you might condone?” she charges. “A Shakespeare Festival as famous as the one you run, with national respect. For what you’ve done for years, embracing this?”

“Grant grants these grants to worthy, deserving theatres who do great work. (The kind of work that we have done for years.) Work worthy of a grant that Grant might grant,” Branch responds. The plan is not to adapt like West Side Story, but rather to make the oeuvre “more friendly; to ‘honefy’ an Othello which might otherwise go down like castor oil.

Polishing Shakespeare is written in iambic pentameter with occasional added syllables (determined becomes determi-ned), alliteration, repetition, and rhythmic emphasis. That it manages to be conversational, meaningful, character specific and darkly witty is a marvel. Your ear will be aware without distancing or diminishing impact. *

Grant, and in his shadow Branch blame neither productions that take liberties nor directors for lack of audience comprehension. They insist language is to blame. Janet rails with such articulate, explicit, tongue-twisting vehemence our audience cheers after her speech. She’s the voice of integrity and commitment. And a whistle-blower.

Branch represents continuity of art. All she can see is the ability to sustain, more than sustain her theater. We realize before she does that making a deal with the devil has hidden consequences. A push-pull as to who controls how the donation will be allocated ensues. Knowledge of “how it (theater) works”, a frequent catch phrase, is evident in the script. Grant flexes i.e. somewhat gleefully threatens. Everyone has a price.

Janet’s it seems, is his offering to pay off her student loans in addition to providing ample salary. As “a playwright of color and a woman” she knows she checks two boxes, but will this leave a stain on her career? “The jinn’s escaped the bottle, Scheherazade,” Janet observes. Genies on The Twilight Zone always won.

A script is written, but not as expected. Branch is horrified, Grant delighted, yet things don’t end with delivery. Janet outsmarts them both…for the moment. The so-called patron embodies those systematically reconceiving history and culture, what Carl Sagan identified as “the slow decay of substantive content, a kind of celebration of ignorance”. Look around you.

Kate Levy’s Ms. Branch is all angles and nerves. Pride, determination, and fear palpably cloud her judgment. Contained frustration vibrates. The dawning of realization is wonderfully visible.

Kate Siahaan-Rigg (Janet) is grounded throughout. The actress offers characterization with implicit history, coloring every reaction and speech. We see her mind percolate, but can’t anticipate what unfolds.

Actor/author Brian Dykstra introduces us to Grant with a twinkle in his eye. Motivation explained as “because I can”, implies the character might be intrigued by altruism. As the play progresses, however, intent begins to sizzle with the insidious nature of a larger blueprint. Like peeling an onion, we observe change. Ego is gloriously depicted as impervious, exultant.

Visual staging is excellent, personalities well manifest, timing masterful. Frequency with which the fourth wall is eliminated makes the piece so stylized, however, it diminishes an alarming situation. Perhaps less of this? There’s an important message here. Director Margarett Perry.

Costume Design by MuMbles fits each character to a T.
Shelves are occupied by such carefully placed and spaced objects and books Ms. Branch’s office looks false. Tyler M. Perry- Scenic Design

Polishing Shakespeare is razor sharp satire. Knowledge of the plays and language, love of theater, and awareness of cultural degeneration work hand in hand to create a timely dramedy. It’s not necessary to be well versed in The Bard, but some exposure will enrich. At its best, the play is enthralling.

*As an undergrad at Cal State University, a professor of actor/author Brian Dykstra brought in a Shakespearean “Text Expert” who explained scansion- the method of determining and representing the metrical pattern of a line of verse, based on the stress or length of syllables and dactyl, the rules of iambic pentameter The Bard utilized. Dykstra took to it “like a duck to water.” He apparently has other plays written in spoken word forms.

Photos courtesy of the production

Twilight Theatre Co. in Association with Kitchen Theatre Company presents
Polishing Shakespeare by Brian Dykstra
Directed by Margaret Perry
59E59 Theaters https://59e59.org/shows/show-detail/polishing-shakespeare/
EXTENDED through August 24, 2025