ABSTRACT
These plays are very “unified” for apprentice work. Even if “unity” is an outmoded and sneered-upon concept these days, it is something a director has to consider, particularly in condensing the sequence, and even if he or she wishes to “deconstruct” the script toward the goal of “multiple signification.” That is often an excuse, of course, for sheer incoherence. It is easy enough to say, Blackstone on evidence to the contrary, “There’s just too much going on—too many speeches, too many battles, too many subplots—for Shakespeare’s early trilogy to ever truly succeed onstage…. [T]hese [are] misshapen plays” (Shapiro 8). Shapiro seems to have forgotten or perhaps did not see Jane Howell’s superb version of the plays for the BBC (see Coursen 1992)
