Mini Reviews: Plays Inspired by Shakespeare/Shakespeare Retellings

Y’all knew I couldn’t let April pass without some sort of Shakespeare related post! As I do every April, I had a lot of Shakespeare related reads on my TBR, and something I’ve wanted to do for a long time is read plays that are either Shakespeare retellings or inspired by Shakespeare.

I ended up reading 4 plays this week, and I thought it was really interesting to see how different playwrights interpreted and adapted Shakespeare’s works. While I didn’t get to as many plays as I was hoping to this week, I did finally read some that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, which I’m definitely happy about!

Twelfth Night (musical adaptation) by Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub

We all know how much I love Twelfth Night, so a musical adaptation is definitely tailor made for me and I just absolutely love this adaptation. I did first listen to the cast recording from the 2018 Public Works production when it was released, but it’s been a long time since I last listened to it, so I didn’t remember much of it. Therefore, I was so glad to revisit the recording with the script in hand since I picked up a copy back in February.

This is such a faithful adaptation. It’s been a little while since I last read Twelfth Night, but I’ve read it so many times that I have most of it memorized, and the scenes in the musical really followed the original trajectory so well and hit all the important beats. The music was SO much fun. I loved all the horns especially and you could really hear the jazz influence, which I absolutely loved. The music did exactly what you want it to in a musical — expose the characters inner feelings and move the plot forward. The music was witty and catchy, and I loved the melodrama. I was laughing out loud while reading along.

While I think all the music is great, this time around I was really loving Play On, If You Were My Beloved, Is This Not Love, What Kind Of Man RU Gonna Be?, and Eyes of Another. You can listen to the cast recording here.

If I had to choose one little thing to nitpick, I do wish that the scene between Orsino and Viola/Cesario where Orsino asks her to woo Olivia for him that ends with Viola sharing her feelings for Orsino with the audience had a little bit more dialogue between the two of them before jumping into Viola’s confession. It is very quick in the original story as well, but there’s a little more dialogue between the two and would’ve liked that here, but that’s really my only “complaint” and it’s a very tiny one and in no way took away any of my enjoyment of the musical.

If you enjoy Twelfth Night and haven’t checked out this musical yet, you absolutely must!

In Juliet’s Garden by Judy Elliot McDonald

Judy Elliot McDonald’s In Juliet’s Garden is actually the play that inspired this entire post! I had heard about it from some list of plays that were inspired by Shakespeare, and when I heard about it I knew I had to read it. Especially since — from the description — it gave me Six the Musical and Enter the Body by Joy McCullough vibes, and I was right!

This play may only be 25 pages, but it brings up some really interesting character and humanity discussions. In Juliet’s Garden gathers together some of Shakespeare’s most well known heroines, Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Portia (The Merchant of Venice), Katherina (The Taming of the Shrew), Desdamona (Othello), Ophelia (Hamlet), to gather together and discuss some of the issues they have with their characters and stories. All of these concerns they share with the Bard’s editor and literary agent, Jacqueline De Boys (a play on Jacque de Boys from As You Like It) and the Nurse.

I truly thought that this was so fun. Similarly to Enter the Body, the women make references to playing these roles every night and the difficulties that come with doing so, and similarly to Six, they make jabs about the men in their lives and imagine how their stories would change if they were in charge. Something that I think McDonald did so well was keep the characters true to themselves throughout the play — my biggest want in any sort of retelling or re-imagining is to be able to recognize the original characters (which sounds like very little to ask, but it’s not always the case honestly…) and McDonald made sure that all of the characters stayed true to their voices.

Personally, I love The Taming of the Shrew and think it’s such a fun play (I would love to direct it one day, I have ideas let me tell you!) but lots of people (understandably) have some issues with the ending and Kate’s “taming” which is something that is brought up in this play, and I was so excited to see that McDonald has the same views on the ending as I do. It was nice to know that I’m not the only person who interprets Kate’s final monologue in a sarcastic and mocking tone that the men around her don’t seem to notice.

In Juliet’s Garden points out that Shakespeare’s female characters not only represent the women of that time period, but they also help us to see how far we’ve come since then. McDonald points out that Shakespeare’s stories are not only to amuse and entertain us, but they also serve as a way to teach us about a multitude of things, but most importantly they teach us about being human and how our pasts and experiences make us the people that we are. 

I had a great time reading this play, and hope that I get to see it performed one day (or work on it) because I think it’s a great time and I really liked the overall tone and message.

Fat Ham by James Ijames

I’ve heard nothing about great things about Fat Ham, which isn’t surprising, considering it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2022. When I finished reading, the first thing I thought was, “I wish I could’ve seen this on Broadway”. While I really enjoyed reading it, I think that there’s so much that you’d get out of this show being able to see it live. Being able to see the beats and moments that Juicy shares with the audience, the looks between characters and what is said through just their reactions and physical interactions. It really was very Shakespearean in that way, the text says one thing, but once you’re able to see it, you get so much more out of it.

I didn’t know that it was a one act until I started reading and realized that there were no scene breaks. While the show itself moves smoothly, I do think some things were a little rushed and I would’ve preferred them to be fleshed out a little bit more — though I do think that some of that “rushed” feeling could be solved in actually seeing the show performed, so I’m not really putting too much stock in that. I loved that Juicy continually broke the fourth wall and spoke directly to the audience; his monologues worked so well and I loved how his monologues built in intensity, just like Hamlet’s.

This was a really fun and cool re-imagining of Hamlet. You could very clearly tell who each character was inspired by, and I loved the direct mentions of Shakespeare and the lines pulled from Shakespeare/Hamlet specifically. The writing was also hilarious and there were a lot of moments that made me laugh out loud. Overall, I really enjoyed Fat Ham and I hope that I get to see a live production at some point.

Death by Shakespeare by Philip L. Nichols, Jr.

From the description, Death by Shakespeare gave me vibes similar to Janice Hallett’s The Appeal and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, so I was really looking forward to reading it. Unfortunately, the positives of this play started and ended there.

Everything about this just felt so…one note and not at all thrilling. Maybe it would be more interesting if I was sitting and watching the play, but I do think that a play should be interesting whether you’re watching it or only reading it. Yes, you can miss some nuance if you’re only reading and not watching (as I mentioned in my Fat Ham review), but the actual text of the show itself doesn’t change from page to stage, and if it’s not interesting in one place it certainly won’t be in the other. 

I think what’s especially frustrating for me, is that this play combined lots of storytelling devices and tropes I love — aside from the obvious of Shakespeare, it was in an isolated location, a revenge plot, the omniscient mysterious voice forewarning the murders and I really liked the addition of Shakespearan characters such as Richard III, Othello and (fill in when you’re looking at the script) coming in and giving one of the monologues from their plays after a death; this really should’ve been a recipe for success. However, every character was bland, their motivations were boring, the deaths felt very anticlimactic, the “twists” were boring and unsurprising and the stakes simply did not feel high enough.

I wanted to like Death by Shakespeare so badly, but this really missed the mark.

There are a few other Shakespeare related plays I had planned on reading for this post, but it’s been a busy April, so I’ll have to get to them throughout the rest of the month. I did start reading Imogen Says Nothing by Aditi Brennan Kapil, and am hoping to get to the others before the end of April.

Do you read plays? If so, drop your favorites in the comments! Until next time! 💜