Storytelling

what was startling, what no one would have anticipated, was that audiences seemed to prefer Shakespeare to their other theatrical offerings.

And I could not help but wonder if this triumphalism was born out of refutation—out of a need to prove that one’s people are not “animals” who have “ruined every country they ever entered.” I’d seen it all my life in the invocations of great kingdoms and ancient empires—a search for provenance and noble roots.