Sim-Ulating Shakespeare: From Stage to Computer Screen

Summary

Shakespeare lives in adaptation. Drama is by nature ephemeral, meaning that Shakespeare’s plays, in the words of Margaret Jane Kidnie, only exist in ‘a dynamic process’ of reproduction and adaptation.¹ The media which welcome such adaptation have a major impact upon the process of reception, so that ‘the medium is the message’, or at least a significant factor in its transmission.² Yet, despite the various transformative possibilities which shape their creation, Shakespearian adaptations on stage, page and television or cinema screen traditionally preserve a clear separation between their (read or performed) text and their receiving audience. Video games, in contrast, refuse any such easy distinctions. When Shakespeare appears in video games, their actively creative users problematize the very foundations upon which theories of adaptation and reception are based.