Shakespeare Gets Another Srage: Video

A series of six William Shakespeare plays, which were condensed into 30-minute animated presentations on HBO earlier this year, are now available on home video.

Last month, six of the Bard’s most popular plays, rewoven for an uninitiated young audience by both British experts and gifted Russian animators, became available through Random House Home Video (1-800-733-3000). The price tag is $14.95 each.

Handsome, matching, 48-page companion books, with the entire script and dozens of beautiful color drawings (Alfred A. Knopf, $6.99, ages 10 and up), are also being marketed with the videos.

The six selections include “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Macbeth,” which were produced in cel animation. Puppetry is used in the presentations of “The Tempest” and “Twelfth Night,” while “Hamlet” is done in the delicate painting-on-glass technique.

The plays were abridged by Leon Garfield, a prominent British children’s author and Shakespearean scholar. Garfield sought aid from academicians such as Stanley Wells, director of the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-Upon-Avon, to be sure he had retained the language, conflict and drama of the Bard.

Those scripts were then animated in Moscow by the Soyuzmultfilm Studios, using different directors, producers, designers and artists for each play. Garfield finished the production process in Cardiff in association with BBC Wales. The voices are provided by Royal Shakespeare Theatre actors.

Garfield noted his satisfaction and enjoyment at working with the Russians but did not minimize the overall task. Lacking a wee bit of modesty, he said that condensing Shakespeare was no easy task. He compared the process to “trying to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel on a postage stamp.” He plans to begin producing six more of Shakespeare’s plays within the year.

He called the animation done by the skillful Russians and Armenians “utterly different” from any animation he has ever encountered.

Garfield said Shakespeare “would have smiled” upon this repackaging of his lines, designed to whet a new generation’s appetite for these ageless classics.