Great Art Made Greater: Thou Dude Abidith!

Someone finally up and did it. Someone went and turned the classic film The Big into a Shakespearian play.

And by that I mean someone took the energy to go through the movie, line by line, and transform them so that the dialogue takes on a certain Shakespearian phrasing from whenever-the-fuck the good Bard wrote his plays. Here, for example, is new version of the first section from the movie?s first scene in ?the bowling green?:

WALTER
In sooth, then, faithful friend, this was a rug of value? Thou wouldst call it not a rug among ordinary rugs, but a rug of purpose? A star in a firmament, in step with the fashion alike to the Whitsun morris-dance? A worthy rug, a rug of consequence, sir?

THE KNAVE
It was of consequence, I should think; verily, it tied the room together, gather?d its qualities as the sweet lovers? spring grass doth the morning dew or the rough scythe the first of autumn harvests. It sat between the four sides of the room, making substance of a square, respecting each wall in equal harmony, in geometer?s cap; a great reckoning in a little room. Verily, it transform?d the room from the space between four walls presented, to the harbour of a man?s monarchy.

WALTER
Indeed, a rug of value; an estimable rug, an honour?d rug; O unhappy rug, that should live to cover such days!

DONALD
Of what dost thou speak, that tied the room together, Knave? Take pains, for I would well hear of that which tied the room together.

WALTER
Didst thou attend the Knave?s tragic history, Sir Donald?

DONALD
Nay, good Sir Walter, I was a-bowling.

WALTER
Thou attend?st not; and so thou hast no frame of reference. Thou art as a child, wandering and strutting amidst the groundlings as a play is in session, heeding not the poor players, their exits and their entrances, and, wanting to know the subject of the story, asking which is the lover and which the tyrant.

THE KNAVE
Come to the point, Sir Walter.

You see what I mean. It?s a hell of a dickens to read the entire thing and make sense of it ? you remember what reading those damn Shakespeare plays in high school was like, right? ? still, this is an achievement that must be commended. If only because if anyone ever ends up staging a performance of this, I?m there.