Don’t Mistake the Accent

Last week I had the exasperating experience of paying $24 a ticket to see appallingly amateurish productions of “King Lear” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by the Renaissance Theatre Company at the Mark Taper Forum.

The financial success of the repertory is not surprising, due to the interest in the company stirred up by Kenneth Branagh’s superb film of “Henry V.” But it saddens me to know that if an American company were to produce such inept stagings of “Lear” and “Midsummer” in its own homeland, the productions would be either laughed off of the stage or ignored.

It’s high time that the theatergoing public stopped seducing itself with the mistaken belief that an English accent equals quality, or that Americans cannot produce a strong voice in the speaking of Shakespearean verse.

JOHN BISHOP, Woodland Hills