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In designing the scenery and costumes for any of Shakespeare's plays, the first thing the artist has to settle is the best date for the drama. This should be determined by the general spirit of the play more than by any actual historical references which may occur in it.

What then is tragedy? In the Elizabethan period it was assumed that a play ending in death was a tragedy, but in recent years we have come to understand that to live on is sometimes far more tragic than death.

Shakespeare and Co dedicates itself to a shared, heady and outdated ideal that is scarce in our protective and fearful age.

It's extremely dangerous to compare anyone else to Shakespeare.

All the great Shakespeare plays are about killing. 'Alas, poor Yorick,' that's about death. And in 'Romeo and Juliet' everyone up ends up dying. The greatest dramas in the world are all about sex, violence and death.

If you were to ask everyone what 'Hamlet' was about, they might say, "It's about a prince, and he says, 'To be or not to be.'"

To have a sense of contemporary ownership of Shakespeare is the most important thing to his work.

The rules of drama are very much separate from the properties of life. I think that's especially true of Shakespeare.