AudioBook | PDF, MP3 (CBR 60 Kbps Mono) | 101h:36min | Publisher: Audio Partners; Unabridged Edition | ISBN: 1932219005 | March 2003 |2.7 GB
“To Buy or Not to Buy! Educators, lovers of theatre and great literature – take note! Late in the 1990s, Harper Row began to release on cassettes the Arkangel Complete Shakespeare, all of which I reviewed in one paper or another. Using some of the best of the young theatrical talent in Great Britain and some of the older established stars of stage and screen, the producers gave us readings of every single word of every single play by Shakespeare, including the seldom-performed “Two Noble Kinsmen� which is partially by Shakespeare.
Well, hold on! Audio Partners has been contracted to release the entire set on CDs. The trick is that you cannot purchase the individual sets but are required to purchase the entire package of 38 plays for $600. That is 98 CDs in all with a playing time of just over 101 hours! Libraries and school departments take note.
Hearing them as they were released on tape in batches of four or five, I was impressed mostly with the enormity of the project but found some things to quibble about. Casting Oberon and Titania with a pair whose voices were South African or Jamaican (no Henry Higgins, I) made some sense in that it emphasized their other-worldly-ness. So did assigning Malvolio in “Twelfth Night� to an actor with a distinct Scottish accent, but giving Mercutio in “Romeo and Juliet� to the same actor was absurd. Then too there is that sudden sound effect of a train pulling out of a station in the middle of “All's Well That Ends Well�! Granted there was a production current then that did place the play in more modern times, but when one is hearing a recording with no clue as to setting, the result was jarring and should have been omitted.