Logo

One of the benefits of creating an open, simple, highly adaptable service like Twitter is the fact that once it takes off, people will try to do a lot of interesting things with it.

Sometimes, people take it too far.

Or not, depending if you think that Twitter of the Shrew - a Twitter adaptation of Shakespeare’s play Taming of the Shrew - is a good idea. Let’s leave the business of describing the project to the creators:

“Spanning 19 Twitter accounts and presented over 12 days (one scene daily), Twitter of the Shrew attempts to live up to Shakespeare’s “Brevity is the soul of wit” proverb, by condensing the play’s iambic pentameter dialogue down to updates of 140 characters or less.“

You can find the main Twitter account for the project here, with 19 additional character accounts:

ShrewKate / Katherine Minola / http://twitter.com/ShrewKate
PetruccioV / Petruccio / http://twitter.com/PetruccioV
Grumio / Grumio / http://twitter.com/Grumio
VeronaCurtis / Curtis / http://twitter.com/VeronaCurtis
Hdasher / Haberdasher / http://twitter.com/Hdasher
Tailor4Petruc / Petruccio’s Tailor / http://twitter.com/Tailor4Petruc
BiancaMinola / Bianca Minola / http://twitter.com/BiancaMinola
BaptistaMinola / Baptista Minola / http://twitter.com/BaptistaMinola
Lucenti0 / Lucentio / http://twitter.com/Lucenti0
Cambi0 / Cambio / http://twitter.com/Cambi0
Trani0 / Tranio / http://twitter.com/Trani0
Biondell0 / Biondello / http://twitter.com/Biondell0
MrVincentio / Vincentio / http://twitter.com/MrVincentio
ThePendant / The Pendant / http://twitter.com/ThePendant
Hortensio / Hortensio / http://twitter.com/Hortensio
LitioH / Litio / http://twitter.com/LitioH
PaduaWidow / The Widow of Padua / http://twitter.com/PaduaWidow
OldGremio / Gremio / http://twitter.com/OldGremio
UPadua / University of Padua / http://twitter.com/UPadua

I don’t see a classic play (or any play, really) functioning too well in this form. Twitter is good for a lot of things, but is it good for drama, where (usually) you have actors sharing the same stage…and, you know, acting? It’s definitely interesting in an odd-experiment sort of way, though. If you want to check it out, it will play out from the 14th till the 25th of February 2009 (GMT-5), one scene every day.