A good Shakespearean play is a lot like a good rap song, it’s been said. Not by many people, surely — but certainly by Riz Ahmed, the actor, rapper, and Oscar-winning writer whose talents converge with his love for the Bard in a new take on Hamlet.
“I actually think it’s one of the best metaphors we have to understand Shakespeare,” the Rogue One alum tells Inverse. “A big issue with how we understand Shakespeare and how we’re introduced to it is we sit down and read it.” But Shakespeare’s plays, like any play, are meant to be heard, to be experienced. We shouldn’t necessarily be poring over every aspect of the text, nor should we understand everything put to paper in our first go.
