Ian Doescher. William Shakespeare’s Star Wars. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2013. Print.

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is a hoot. It is the original Star Wars story (a.k.a. Part Four) in the form of a five act play in blank verse. Doescher styles his blank verse in a kind of faux Elizabethan English. But after all, there are no sixteenth century equivalents to hyperdrive or womp rats. Doescher does the job.

Of course, many lines echo those of Shakespeare himself, mostly for fun:

What light through yonder flashing sensor breaks? (3.4.46)

Friends, rebels, starfighters, lend me your ears. (5.4.65)

And some famous lines from the film sound just as effective in the Shakespearean style:

These are not the droids for which thou search’st. (3.1.22)

                    —O help
Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, help. Thou art
Mine only hope. (1.6.111-113)

I cannot say how much this does justice to the Bard, but the tale is cleverly conceived and constructed.

Doescher is especially clever in how he plays R2-D2. Numerous Shakespeare characters have soliloquies which inform the audience what he is really thinking when he talks or acts differently when interacting with the other characters. Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part 1 tells the audience he is deliberately acting like a low-life so that he will be underestimated by his enemies and more appreciated by his allies when he finally acts according to character. Iago numerous times in Othello informs the audience of his plans while duping virtually everyone around him. So R2-D2 has a number of asides to the audience in English but always speaks in his beeps and whistles when interacting with other characters.

There is also a chorus like the one in Henry V who not only introduces the play but comments on the action and informs us of actions that are going on behind the scenes or that might be too difficult to stage. As he says in a sonnet (of course) in his prologue:

In time so long ago begins our play,
In star-crossed galaxy far, far away. (Prologue. 13,14)

Thou shalt have fun with this William Shakespeare’s Star Wars.

Thanks to the student who gave me a copy of this book.