The Shakespeare Code Finally Cracked

June 25, 2012 - PRLog -- William Shakespeare did not write his plays to be read. He didn't write his plays for you or me. He had no idea that they would be studied and taught by students and scholars, or performed and staged by actors and theaters, 400 years later. He wrote his plays for HIS audience and only his audience. His audience is the key to unlocking the meaning of the plays.

Writer David Schajer's new adaptations of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard III and The Merchant of Venice (available now from Amazon, Apple, Google Play, and Smashwords) puts us front and center in that audience to see the plays as they would have been performed for the first time -- their world premieres -- in Shakespeare's day, and performed by Shakespeare himself and his company of actors.

Seen in this way, by setting the plays in their real historical context, each of the plays come alive in an entirely new way, and many of the greatest questions about the plays are answered for the very first time:

Who was the real historical figure Shakespeare based the character of Hamlet on? Was it the Earl of Essex, King James of Scotland, Philip Sidney, or someone else? What does Hamlet mean? Why is it Shakespeare's greatest play? When did Shakespeare write the play? What influence did Christopher Marlowe have on Shakespeare's Richard III? Why did he write The Merchant of Venice? Is it possible that Shylock is not the villain but perhaps the hero?

All of these centuries-old questions are answered for the first time. Through these three adaptations of some of Shakespeare's greatest plays, we can finally see the man behind the plays, and gain a greater appreciation of not only of the plays but the man who wrote them!