Brash old George Bernard Shaw, who coined the word "Bardolatry," has never denied that he is a better playwright than Shakespeare. For Shakespeare's Cymbeline he has long had particular contempt, has called it "stagy trash of the lowest melodramatic order." Last week London play-goers had a chance to see an allegedly improved Cymbeline, by Shakespeare & Shaw.
Principal changes were in the last act, which Shaw cut to a third of its length, almost completely rewrote. What made the London audience sit up was not the clatter of the Shavian blank verse...
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