沪江专访知名话剧导演Thomas Caron：莎翁魅力 历久弥新

I don't know, i'm gonna find out. This afternoon I'm having a meeting with a woman who's very interested in helping to promote and sell tickets. I really don't know, I know there's a great love for Shakespeare here, as in anywhere, and you know the city that does more Shakespeare than any city in the world is Berlin. They're doing it in German; they're not doing in English. You translate Shakespeare, you lose the English poetry, but you don't lose the story, you don't lose the drama, you don't lose the theatricality. So I think Shakespeare can do very well here, but I don't know... It's show-business, but business parts are not my strongest part. so I need people to help me and guide me, and I have people that help me and guide me. We'll see what happens. Next few months will be a big education.

Absolutely. People speak Shakespeare everyday; they don't know that Shakespeare invented hundreds of phrases even words that we use everyday. so if you speak English, you're speaking Shakespeare, as good as gold.

Well, the whole point of Shakespeare is you were never meant to read Shakespeare. You're meant to go to see the plays. You know Shakespeare did never imagine someday somebody would take a book down of the shelf and read his plays, that's what they're for: they're blue prints, they're starting points, they're not meant to be read, and that's why Shakespeare’s ruined for kids in school because the teachers teach them these are the books you must read. They're not meant to be. You can't understand them unless you see them on the stage then all becomes clear.

So in that respect i would not, say, recommend read Shakespeare to improve your English, no, i would not say so. But if you could see a play and be excited about it, then go on and read it. I think that could be more of help. but reading a code.. i don't see there's anything for anybody, because so much has been left out, you don't see the actual play. the play is primarily an action more than words. Words are the last thing that happen in life. You have the thought, you have the feeling, you process it, it comes out in words. Words are the last thing that happens. put words first without trying to comfort where and how they're being expressed is what we say putting the cart before the horse. （沪江小编注：Put the cart before the horse. 英语谚语，直译“把车放在马前面”，即“本末倒置”）

It's not the background of WW2, it's the background just before WW2. 1939 the war broke out, well it depends how you look at, people are catching up. You know they always say that the war began when Hilter invaded Poland. But now, that's a very Europe Centraled, western view. You know the war really began when Japan invaded china. But that was earlier, people don't look at it, but in terms of Europe, by putting it in 1939, it gives the characters... It's sort of explain the motive, they're all trying to falling in love with each other in a very desperate, frantic way. If there's a big black cloud rolling in called WW2, this would explain this kind of frantic behavior. i don't know if i explained this frantic behavior but it gives it a good setting.

Also I think I prefer to put Shakespeare like modern, or simulmodern setting because when you dress Shakespeare tights and funny colors, you take something that's already alien to most people and make it more alien. So when you put it in a modern time it gives people a way in. But this is a good period to do it, the costumes are fabulous.

There's a great French film, some people consider it the greatest movie ever made. It's called the rules of the game, by a great French film writer Jean Renoir. The stories were also in 1939, and it was made in 1939. The stories are different, but the characters are very similar, they're all trying to find love, and they all have this desperation about love. I made all my actors watch it, to see the period and to see the clothing. But he describes his characters as dancing on the edge of a volcano, that's really a good metaphor for what we're trying to do in this play.