Artoriarius
Lord High Pooh-Bah of All Books I Survey
Nice "slippery slope" fallacy there! But by "highbrow literature" rut, I meant that people tend to see Shakespeare as highbrow literature - some grand, glorious thing that needs to be studied to understand, usually in boring high school literature classes that nobody enjoys. It's not; it's entertainment for the masses, and a modernisation can make people who used to read the plays with boredom in school see them in a new light. Think of it as another way of interpreting the plays for the audience. And just as performing Richard III with an actual disabled person playing the titular king (as happened on Broadway a few years back) didn't mean every performance thereafter required one person to act the king and one to speak his lines; just as sign language versions haven't changed the way the actors move during regular performances; and just as Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet didn't make every performance of Romeo and Juliet afterward include guns and gangsters; modernisations aren't going to replace the plays. They're just one more of a myriad of ways to perform, understand, and enjoy the Bard's work.