Polishing Shakespeare

Brilliantly written and performed modern Shakespeare. A "must see".

“Polishing Shakespeare”
For 400 years, theatre directors have done a myriad of supposed innovative approaches to add new light into the works of Shakespeare. But in Brian Dykstra and Margarett Perry’s “Polishing Shakespeare,” the latest idea by a billionaire patron is to update the Elizabethan landscape into modern, call it “dumbed-down” wordage in order to reach the masses. (In fact, the venerable Oregon Shakespeare Festival has announced the launch of a 39-play, three-year long commissioning project, Play on! 36 playwrights to translate Shakespeare into modern parlance.)

As they speak in an often hilarious iambic pentameter full of elongated alliterations, forced rhymes, and obligatory soliloquies, theatre artistic director Ms. Branch (Kate Levy) and dot-com billionaire Grant (Brian Dykstra), approach playwright Janet (Kate Siahaan-Rigg) with an offer to fund all her outstanding student loans if she will rewrite one Shakespeare classic into the common person’s jargon. What ensues is a very real dilemma facing many nonprofit theatres today: How much to alter their art and values in order to obtain the funds they so desperately need in order to survive. Kate Levy, Brian Dykstra and Kate Siahaan-Rigg are incredibly amazing as they banter, bargain, and bully each other for their own needs and wishes; with both comedy and reality of today’s harsh theatre atmosphere taking center stage. This is a play every theater executive, funder, and board member as well as the playwrights themselves should see.
Rating: 5 E

A gem of a piece, beautifully and wittily crafted in verse and excellently acted, that deserves a wide audience.

Polishing Shakespeare (*****)
Based on a true story, an American billionaire offers a theater’s artistic director and a playwright a grant to “translate” Shakespeare’s plays into “American” English. The show uses finely wrought prose to explore the unavoidable battle between a donor’s power of the purse, and art’s criticism of such power. I appreciated that the playwright character provides a legitimate, albeit short, example of a proposed adaptation of “Henry VIII”, which was Shakespeare’s own homage to his benefactor’s family.


This is the 8th most enjoyable of the 136 shows I have seen so far at the Fringe this year. I hope to see more than 150 this year. You may see my other three-sentence reviews, in order from most enjoyable to worst, at my non-commercial website: https://fringefan.com/

Brilliant! Fast-paced and clever, with plenty of inside nods for those who see and know too much Shakespeare, but still fun and relatable for more casual audience members. Really well-crafted script, nicely executed in the intimate space. Definitely top-notch work!

This was great. Fast-paced, clever script. Excellent cast. ****

What a brilliant show. We throughly enjoyed it and both of us it was such a pity that they were in a small space. This deserves a much bigger audience. Well done.

A well acted play with a strong story. Shows the balance between corporate selling out and morals. You don’t need to know Shakespeare but knowing his style will help. A well spent hour

A wonderful play capturing the struggle between accepting corporate dollars and artistic freedom. Outstanding performance by the cast, especially Kate Siahaan-Rigg! 4/5.