加勒比海出自莎士比亚笔下?

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NEAL CONAN, host:

Shakespeare's plays had been reinterpreted in countless eras and locales. Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo dueled and wooed in Verona Beach. Cole Porter re-tamed the shrew as a musical. In the most recent adaptation, award-winning director Timothy Douglas sets "Much Ado About Nothing" in a vibrant alley in modern day Washington, D.C., and has the characters declaim their lines in Caribbean accents.

Timothy Douglas' "Much Ado" is running at Washington's Folger Shakespeare Theater, where, as it happens, he made his professional directing debut in 1995. His many credits include the world premiere of August Wilson's final play, "Radio Golf." And he joins us in just a moment.

So, how about you, what's your favorite Shakespeare remake or your favorite reinterpretation disaster? Give us a call. 800-989-8255; email us: talk@NPR.org. You can also join the conversation at our Web site. That's at NPR.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. Director Timothy Douglas joins us from the studios of member station WHAD in Milwaukee. And nice to have you on TALK OF THE NATION today.

Mr. TIMOTHY DOUGLAS (Director, "Much Ado About Nothing"): Great to be here.

CONAN: And what gave you the idea of setting "Much Ado About Nothing" in modern day Washington?

Mr. DOUGLAS: I rely on intuition for everything that happens creatively. And when I was asked to consider "Much Ado" for the Folger, a series of images and impressions came to me and they meshed in this production.

CONAN: And you got the idea, I gather, at least I read in an interview, by looking at a poster for the Caribbean festival.

Mr. DOUGLAS: Well, first, it started with a conversation with the director of the Folger Theater, Janet Griffin, about what I would do with "Much Ado." And I was really interested in carnival. But I first thought of Brazil. But as I thought about it, all carnival tradition comes out of Trinidad, and that felt more - I felt more home with that. So as I started to pursue that and I went to D.C. to visit, it occurred to me that rarely do reinterpreted classics in D.C. get set in D.C. I've seen a lot of reinterpreted classics. And I thought, well, I'd like to do that.

And there was this dilemma, do I do the Trinidadian carnival? Or do I set it in D.C.? And then I heard the radio advertisement for the D.C. Caribbean Carnival and it all came together in that moment.

CONAN: And it all came - and then you also had to decide, well, how much do I reinterpret? For example, you've already changed the time and the place, did you think about changing the dialogue?

Mr. DOUGLAS: No. And it's the - first and foremost, is Shakespeare's story must be told as I understand it, and I would never change anything about Shakespeare's play to suit my conceits. So finding exact or augmented parallels was the most important thing to do.

CONAN: So as you looked at the play and realized that you were doing it in a resetting, I did notice that there's a character in your play called the DJ. I didn't think Shakespeare wrote for a DJ.

(Soundbite of laughter)