Is TV Ready for Pocket Shakespeare? : No Moneys in Sight for Papp’s Dream to Telecast the Bard

The man who brought free Shakespeare to Central Park now wants to beam the Bard into your living room.

Joseph Papp says his proposal to produce TV specials on each of Shakespeare’s 36 plays has whetted interest among networks, studios, cable TV, public TV and corporate sponsors. Unfortunately, the theater impresario adds, it has failed to open any pocketbooks so far.

Papp envisions one-hour, prime-time TV shows with stars such as Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep and Wallace Shawn performing 40 minutes of key scenes from each play. For the balance, actors would remain in character but switch to impromptu discussions of plot and protagonist.

The 66-year-old founder and presiding guru of New York’s Public Theater and the city’s cherished Shakespeare Festival acknowledges his idea hasn’t exactly brought the house down.

“I think they’re scared. They’re tantalized by the stars . . . (but) afraid of Shakespeare,” the outspoken producer said.

Papp first captured the limelight in the 1950s, when he brought theater to thousands in Central Park with the Shakespeare Festival, now an annual summer event. Today, as well as staging the classics, he heads a theatrical arts institution that has showcased works on AIDS and Vietnam and nurtured numerous aspiring playwrights and actors over the years.

But this is the MTV generation. Can Shakespeare compete with Bill Cosby and “Miami Vice”?

“We have not had the success we wanted,” said Ron Yatter, a senior vice president of the William Morris Agency who has shopped Papp’s proposal around town now for several months. He says some sponsors fear Shakespeare won’t rake in the ratings, but adds that at least one corporation is “seriously interested” in filming “Much Ado About Nothing.”

Edward R. Pressman, who produced the films “Plenty” and “The Pirates of Penzance” with Papp, says several Japanese TV companies are also interested but that “these things take time.”

Other industry veterans praise the project but say its scope makes potential sponsors dizzy.

“We’ve had no success with funding because of the huge scale of it,” said Jac Venza, director of performance programs for New York’s public TV station, WNET.

Then there’s Home Box Office, which just said no.

“Shakespeare has not really shown himself to be part of the mainstream of American culture,” said Bridget Potter, an HBO senior vice president who called the project “commendable, of enormous value. (But) as an entertainment channel, we didn’t feel the shows would be commercially viable.”

Papp, who runs his Public Theater like one of Shakespeare’s philosopher kings, finds the corporate hesitation exasperating. “We want to explore the issues of the plays in contemporary terms,” he said. “We’re proposing to do this in an exciting and imaginative way.”

Papp wants to film six specials each year, at between $500,000 and $750,000 each. Costs remain relatively low, he said, because the plays are already slated for production in New York and the stellar casts are working at far less than their usual commercial fees.

Steve Cohen, Papp’s associate producer, calls it “a rare opportunity to capture on film some of the best actors of our time.”

But one play has already closed: The Public Theater production of “Julius Caesar,” with Al Pacino and Martin Sheen, closed this spring.

Why doesn’t Papp film the plays in their entirety?

The producer believes the scaled-down versions will reach a broader audience, including viewers who might not tune in to the whole production. He originally proposed filming entire plays but said there were no takers.

Still, many in the industry (who haven’t offered lines of credit) say they hope Papp finds support to produce and film the definitive American video library of all Shakespeare’s works--from beginning to end.

A British film version of Shakespeare’s plays already exists, produced by the BBC and starring stage giants such as Lord Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith.

At the Public Theater, meanwhile, rehearsals are under way for “Much Ado About Nothing” with Kevin Kline, Blythe Danner and Phoebe Cates, which opens June 24.

Will millions of home viewers ever see this production, or highlights from it?

Papp hopes so. He says popular audiences would love it.

“Shakespeare wrote for a popular audience,” says the theater producer, who cautions against placing the Elizabethan playwright on a pedestal.

“In Shakespeare’s England, it wasn’t approached like a shrine.”