Televisionary Shakespeare: Working with The Shakespeare Hour

Abstract

O NE OF THE CHARMS of leasing a car in France is that you receive a copy of the owner's manual in your native language. That's the way I discovered that my Renault 9 was equipped with a mysterious device called a demistifier, which cleared ice, fog, and mist from the rear window. All of this was available at the touch of a button. I was struck by the analogy between my demistifier and the proposal prepared by the Education Department of WNET for Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities. This was the basis for The Shakespeare Hour, a PBS television series that is scheduled to begin in January 1986. Early in the document we have a strong statement of purpose: We plan to Shakespeare, not by translating him 'down' to the modem television level, but by raising audience expectations, of the plays and of themselves as viewers. I know that it is not fair to quote from proposals and prospectuses written in the heat of the moment and preoccupied with the venial objective of obtaining funding. Yet the word demystify sticks in my mind as a characteristic television expression. Television people have a strong sense of cultural mission that leads them