Shakespeare would be shocked if were able to see the artistic liberties taken with modern stagings of his plays, say the pearl-clutching traditionalists. Would he even recognize his own work filtered through four centuries of bastardization? Would he despair at the state of what passes for entertainment? I actually rather imagine he would–why is the audience so passive?, he may wonder. How come they’re only laughing at the really obvious sex jokes? And are those women onstage? Cultural norm shifts aside, the postmodern “bastardization” of Shakespeare’s and his contemporaries’ plays may be more comfortable and familiar to him than one would expect. When directors–usually film directors–set out to recreate the original stagings of Shakespeare’s plays, their design decisions are informed more or less by historical fact. We know what Elizabethan theatres looked like, and that sets were sparse if they existed at all. We also know that the costumes reflected the fashions of the day…or do we? After all, we only know of a single contemporary image that depicts said costumes. Is it accurate? Maybe, maybe not–but it’s all we have.