ABSTRACT
What the others had said, and would continue to say, matters a great deal, or books such as this one would not exist; but unless Tynan was right that the 1960 Old Vic Romeo and Juliet was something, at least, of a revolution, Franco Zeffirelli’s presence in this pantheon of Shakespeare directors would hardly be justified. For it was his first independent Shakespeare production and, as far as the English theatre is concerned, there would be only two more, an Othello for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) the following October and a Much Ado about Nothing for the National Theatre (NT) in February 1965. Three Shakespeare productions in five years, and two films shortly
afterwards, The Taming of the Shrew in 1966 and Romeo and Juliet in 1968, with a film of Hamlet very much later, in 1990, is a somewhat limited œuvre upon which to base a Shakespearian directorial reputation. What is it about this small body of work that gives it a significant place in the history of twentieth-century Shakespeare production?
