Shakespeare in Klingon

Look at this: Soliloquy in Klingon. What's wrong with that? In it's own terms, nothing. It's a good performance and actually it's interesting to see that a decent actor and Shakespeare's lines can still have meaning in an artificial language.

Mind you, Ken Campbell knew that when he translated The Scottish Play into pidgin. There's a review here. Nope, it's not the language or the performance that make the To Be Or Not To Be speech out of place in Klingon. It's the choice of play.

Hamlet is far too...wet...to be a Klingon. Had Hamlet been a Klingon, the play would be one act long, that act consisting of the message from the ghost of Hamlet's father and then a brutal fight scene ending with Claudius bifurcated and a dying Hamlet giving Fortinbras a solid kicking too.

The whole 'Hamlet in Klingon' thing comes from the Star Trek movie The Undiscovered Country, in which a Klingon character insists that one can best understand Shakespeare only in the original Klingon.

Fair enough. Bill's got the same haircut and exposed forehead as a Klingon, and Bill has a talent for writing stirring pre-battle speeches.

However, to see how a Klingon really should handle Shakespeare we might as well turn to a master of the art. Here's Sir Ian doing the opening bit to Richard III.

It is possibly the most badass introduction to a character that Shakespeare ever gives. Within the space of one speech you know everything about Richard that you will ever need to know, and you come to respect his intelligence and his cunning all at the same time. You know that Richard is a soldier first and foremost, too, which should make him appealing to Klingons.