RobertLiebowitz.com

Yeah, I said it. Overrated. When his dialogue are short bursts–Othello and Iago, the two assassins in Richard III, the balcony scene in R & J-he is first rate. Really terrific, profoundly entertaining dialogue. The poetry he shoehorns into his plays, however, has no place on a modern stage, with one or two exceptions. Playwriting is the art of THE SPOKEN WORD–people simply do not speak in poetry, and it runs counter to everything that modern theatre aspires to be.

You can’t claim he is the greatest when very few people, this humble scribe included, cannot understand 85% of what they hear in any given play.

Let the debate begin.