To say that Star Wars is a cultural touchstone is putting it lightly. The saga of Luke Skywalker is among the most influential pieces of entertainment and storytelling since its release in 1977. It has garnered many sequels, spin offs, games, an entire expanded universe of books, comics, action figures, cereal and has basically permeated every facet of life. But the galaxy far, far away has one more frontier to conquer: Shakespeare.
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Last week on July 1, Quirk Books released the third installment of Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars adaptation, aptly titled The Jedi Doth Return. Now, at last, all of us English majors can combine our love of Star Wars with some scholarly reading for our Shakespeare's classes.
In the plays, the original Star Wars script is reimagined into a riveting Shakespearean iambic pentameter. Luke, Han, Leia and all the rest are given to quiet soliloquies and inner monologue. A Greek Chorus offers interludes as the characters bounce from planet to planet. R2-D2 and C3PO are reimagined as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-esque comedic players. Even the minor guards, such as poor TK-41 on the Death Star are given their own moments to shine.
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The gimmick is similar to The Two Gentlemen Of Lebowski, which was released in 2010 and reimagines The Big Lewbowski by way of The Bard. Though one could dismiss the whole project as merely that: a gimmick, the actual phrasing is lovingly written and though it may lack the verbal repertoire and panache of Will's original plays, let's remember that there is an entire sub-discipline of English Literature devoted solely to Shakespeare. Very hard competition.
The plays are a clever blend of Shakespearan prose and Lucasian intent. Certain phrases are aped from other Bardic tales, such as "once more unto the trench" or "we few, we happy few", both from Henry V. Reading the words, it is easy to pick up on the moments the play is adapting and imagine how it will look if, or rather 'when', it is ever staged. Indeed, it may be the easiest Shakespearean play to follow, because we have had so much exposure to the traditional narrative that the dense Renaissance verbiage does not seem so out of place.
But a play is meant to be performed. Instead of the text, one can also order a very well done stage reading of the trilogy, performed by professional actors who capture the very best of Hammil, Ford, Fisher and all the others. I spent my 4th of July weekend listening to the first one and was thoroughly impressed, and even moved by some of the minor additions author Ian Doescher uses to fill out the story.
As author Ian Doescher says in the afterward of the original William Shakespeare's Star Wars, George Lucas' film and the 37 plays of the Bard are not too dissimilar. Joseph Campbell referenced Shakespeare heavily in his mythological treatise, A Hero With A Thousand Faces, which provided the template for the original trilogy.
You can order William Shakespeare's Star Wars, William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back, released back in March and William Shakespeare's The Jedi Doth Return from Amazon. I hope that after the apocalypse, when men are rebuilding civilization, they discover these books and mistakenly assume them to be part of Shakespeare's original canon.
Here's a little taste of what it would look like performed live...
