VOA常速英语20103--有关莎士比亚的App（在线收听）

Shakespeare? There's an App for That 有关莎士比亚的App

NEW YORK — Ross Williams is passionate about Shakespeare. He studied acting and directing and is the founder of a theater company called the New York Shakespeare Exchange. But he’s well aware that many people don’t share his enthusiasm.

纽约-罗斯.威廉姆斯对莎士比亚充满激情。他学习表演和导演，并且他是纽约莎士比亚交流戏剧公司的创立者。但是他十分清楚许多人不能分享到他的热情。

Four hundred-year-old English is tough to decipher, he says, and many think of Shakespeare as dusty and dull.

400年之久的英语是很难理解的。他说，许多人认为莎士比亚是尘封已久的并且枯燥的。

“I started thinking about how I could deliver Shakespeare to people in small chunks, things that would be manageable and get people to experience Shakespeare in their day-to-day lives without having to make the commitment to go see a full show," Williams said. "And so we started with the sonnets because they’re contained.”

“我开始思考，我如何可以通过小块实物、事情将莎士比亚传递给人们，并且比较容易管理。让人们在日常的生活中感受莎士比亚，并且不需要尽义务去看完一整场的表演，”威廉姆斯说。“而且之所以我们从诗歌开始，是因为诗歌容纳了很多东西。”

He and his colleagues founded The Sonnet Project as part of their theater company. The idea is to film each of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, which are 14-line poems, and release each one before the bard’s birthday next April.

他和他的同事们创立了诗歌项目，这作为他们戏剧公司的一部分。这个想法是将莎士比亚的154首14行诗拍成电影，而且每一部电影都发布于诗人生日前，将会是将来的四月份。

This is Shakespeare for the tech savvy. You can watch the films on the Sonnet Project’s website, or download the app to your phone and get regular sonnet deliveries. Each piece is filmed in a different location in New York City.

这是为莎士比亚设计的高科技。你可以在诗歌项目的网站上观看电影，或者下载应用软件到你的手机，这样可以接收诗歌的传输。每部电影拍摄于纽约市的不同场所。

Today, a crew is shooting sonnet 3 in a Brooklyn bar. The establishment is decades old, with a dark wood floor and a heavy, old-fashioned cash register against one wall. In this sonnet, an older man urges a young one to find someone to bear his child, so that his good looks are replicated and he does not die without heirs.

今天，全体拍摄人员在布鲁克林酒吧录制诗歌三。这个酒吧已建立数十年之久，黑色的木质楼梯和倚靠在墙边沉重、过时的现金收银台。在这首诗中，一个老人劝说年轻人去找个人来生儿育女，这样他的精致的容颜就可以有人继承，不会死后无儿无女。

Actor Ron Cohen performs the verse. He plays a seasoned barman encouraging a young male customer to check out two girls at the end of the bar, lest he miss his chance to reproduce.

演员罗恩.科恩表演诗句。他扮演一个经验丰富的酒保，鼓励一个年轻的男客人在酒吧的的末端对两个女孩耕种，唯恐他错过了生殖下一代的机会。

“...For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb of his self-love to stop posterity...”

“…因为哪里会有女人那么淑贞她那处女的胎不愿被你耕种？哪里有男人那么蠢，他竟甘心做自己的坟墓，绝自己的血统...”

The sonnet ends with the words, "Die single, and thine image dies with thee." After that, the white-haired barman tosses back a shot of liquor and seems to contemplate his own life.

这首诗歌以这些词为结尾，“但是你活着若不愿被人惦记，就独自死去，你的肖像将会和你在一起。

Cohen has acted in Shakespeare plays from "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" to "Othello." He’s intrigued by the idea of delivering Shakespeare in short bursts.

科恩在莎士比亚戏剧中表演来自于“仲夏夜之梦”到“奥赛罗。”他来自于莎士比亚的灵感瞬间迸发了。

“Fantastic," he said. "Great idea,especially the idea of doing it in different locales in New York, tying in the contemporary feeling of Shakespeare.”

“太奇妙了，”他说到。“伟大的思想，尤其是在纽约不同的场所来实现这些想法，试着在当时的情境去体会莎士比亚的感受。”

Today’s locale, Sunny’s Bar, has been at this spot for 150 years. But the bar was badly flooded when Hurricane Sandy swept through New York last year. It’s looking to renew itself, just as the old barman hopes his young customer will renew himself by having a child.

今天的拍摄场所，桑尼的酒吧，这个酒吧已经有150年历史了。但是在去年，桑迪飓风横扫了纽约，这个酒吧被大洪水倾袭了。重新翻新这个酒吧，就如年岁已老的酒保希望他的男客人们可以通过繁殖下一代，来翻新自己。

To complete a project this big requires the talents of many artists, so Williams put out a call to filmmakers on the Sonnet Project’s website and by word of mouth. Noemi Charlotte Thieves, 25, was one of many who signed up. He directed sonnet 71 a few months ago. He was not a Shakespeare fan at school and when he came to The Sonnet Project, his knowledge was pretty sketchy.

为了完成这个电影，需要许多艺术家的充足的智慧，所以威廉姆斯口头给有关诗歌项目的网站的电影制片人打电话。一个叫诺埃米.夏洛特的小偷，他25岁，是其中一个已签约的。他在几个月前，就表演诗歌七十一。在上学的时候，他不是莎士比亚迷，并且当他去诗歌项目时，他的知识是相当粗略的。

“I thought sonnets were like monologues or soliloquies from his plays," Thieves said. "I totally had no idea what they were, so I was completely na?ve and ignorant to the whole thing. So I was like, 'Oh, sonnet, okay, cool, whatever.' And then I read it and I was like, 'Ah, okay, I can do something with this.'”

“我曾想过诗歌就像独白或者是莎士比亚的自言自语，”小偷这么说道。“他们是怎样的我完全没有想法，所以我是完全天真且对整个事情不知情的。所以我就得像他，”'噢，是诗歌，好的，很酷，无论如何。'同时当我朗诵诗歌，并且我就得像他，'好的，我可以做类似的这些事情。'”

What he remembered when he started studying the sonnet in question was how visual Shakespeare’s language is. Thieves compares the playwright to a famous contemporary filmmaker.

他所记得的是当他开始带着问题学习诗歌，并且如何将莎士比亚的语言转换为可见的场景。小偷把剧作家比作了著名的当代电影制作人。

“When you’re talking about what makes his language so unique, he was in a lot of ways like [Quentin] Tarantino is today. I always say if Shakespeare was an artist living today he wouldn’t be a playwright, he would be a screenwriter, he would be a filmmaker.”

当你谈论什么使得他的语言如此独特，他在许多方面就像当代的[昆廷]塔兰蒂诺。我总是觉得如果莎士比亚生活在当代，他不会是个剧作家，他可能是一个编剧家，他可能是一个电影制作人。”

Ross Williams, founder of the Sonnet Project, agrees. He wants people to see Shakespeare as part of pop culture, which, he says, the playwright was in his day. He hopes the films will help dispel some of Shakespeare’s mystique.

罗斯.威廉姆斯，诗歌项目的创立人，也表示同意。他希望人们可以把莎士比亚的作为流行文化的一部分，他说，莎士比亚是那个年代的剧作家。他希望电影可以帮助人们消散对莎士比亚的不解。

“It is a little tricky sometimes but it’s still words, telling a story, and sharing emotion,” he said.

“有时有些复杂，但是它始终是一些词语，叙述一个故事，分享一些情绪，”他说道。

Even if instead of coming from a stage, that emotion is emanating from the tiny screen on your phone.

即使不是来自一个剧院的舞台，那些情绪可以从你的手机的小屏幕上传过来。