Simplified Shakespeare offers viewers a condensed set of Shakespeare’s histories, comedies, tragedies and other plays, providing through each abridged version of each play a straight-forward synopsis, a one-paragraph description of each principal character, and a shortened account of each play. More abbreviated accounts of these plays can be found at www.abbreviatedshakespeare.com. And a collection of key situations offered through Shakespeare’s plays, drawn down to generally no more than one page, can be found at www.thebestofshakespeare.com.
Throughout his plays Shakespeare would make a point, sharing an insight with his audience, time after time, often through soliloquies. We think it’s why he wrote the plays; to share his observations. We’ve taken those observations and converted many of the points he made into sonnets; the sonnets being central to this set of abridged histories, comedies and tragedies. This is Shakespeare made easy, or easier.
By focusing on the uniqueness of Shakespeare and by making these most famous of plays simpler, easier and quicker to read, our hope is that more people can appreciate the gifts we think he meant them to be. Shakespeare hid his treasure in these complex stories; stories that help us better understand human nature and who we are. Simplified Shakespeare is an effort to open his timeless treasure chest in a wider way, and to make these stories less complex without compromising the messages.