Pastiche

This story is in no way original, but that's not the point. What the play sets out to accomplish is not only to weave together several famous stories, but also to reinvigorate them, bring new life to them, and hopefully inspire people to go back and read the source material. This play is based on several Shakespeare plays, on some works by Chaucer, Milton, Virgil, and on works by a few other great writers. It is an attempt to do to Shakespeare what Shakespeare so famously did to other authors, which is, to take their stories and give his own interpretation of them. The basic plot of this play has directly been taken from such works as Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, and The Aeneid, to name a few (in total, about twenty works are treated here at various times). The plot lines have been woven together in a new way to create a kind of collage out of the source material. Each scene revolves around a central quote to which the scene is alluding, but the way in which the quote is interpreted, and the way in which the characters respond is original. If this work fails in its ambitious goal to bring all these stories together, hopefully it will succeed in restoring interest in the classic works that are treated. While this story may not live up to the stories that it depicts, it is only told in the hopes that one may read this story, and then go back and read all the stories to which the author alludes. If in the end this project ultimately fails, it will fail only insofar as these works are no longer read, no longer enjoyed. To read them is the ultimate aim; that is the ultimate goal.