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(Catherine Lamy, buzz Illustrator)

“I feel Shakespeare is timeless — very adaptable,” says Caitlin Megginson, who directed The Tempest for the What You Will theatre company. The combination of adaptability and timelessness is what keeps Shakespeare fresh and interesting for modern audiences.

There are two tracks to take when modernizing Shakespeare. The first, demonstrated by What You Will’s Tempest, is to change the setting, but keep the original language. The second, demonstrated by the Celebration Company at the Station Theatre’s production of The Bomb-itty of Errors, is to use the original play as a starting point, and make something new from it.

What You Will’s Tempest sets the action in the fascist Italy of the 1930s. Prospero has been forced out by a coup, as in the original, and exiled to an island. Directors Caitlin Megginson and Brian Falbo tried to draw out questions on the nature of power as Prospero gets the upper hand over his tormentors. He slowly becomes more fascist and vengeful and is redeemed at the end by the wedding of his daughter and the son of his opponents. Megginson and Falbo chose to show this transformation through costume, with Prospero’s cloths becoming increasingly like the uniforms of the fascists.

The Celebration Company’s Bombitty of Errors, on the other hand, is a radical departure from its source. Taking the basic story of The Comedy of Errors, director Aaron Matthew Polk led a cast of four in a joyous hip-hop adaptation. Polk says that the production “Stays faithful to the story without staying faithful to the language.” He takes issue with some modernized productions of Shakespeare, calling modernizations “an arms race ... someone’s doing Merchant of Venice in ’20s Chicago or the Tempest in the Deep South, Louisiana.” Polk also feels that adapting, rather than modernizing, Shakespeare brings it back to the common people, Shakespeare’s original audience.

While the methods of these two productions are different, the goals are the same. Both Bomb-itty of Errors director Aaron Matthew Polk and Tempest director Caitlin Megginson wanted to help modern audiences, who might not be as familiar with or as willing to see Shakespeare, get into the Bard. “I feel that modernizing brings it closer to home,” says Megginson, while Polk says that the adaptation he directed makes the play “accessible to a different audience ... those who wouldn’t usually come see Shakespeare.”

There’s certainly no shortage of modern productions of Shakespeare in Champaign-Urbana. From Parkland College’s goofy Tempest adaptation Return to the Forbidden Planet to the Krannert Center’s brooding modernization of Measure for Measure, opportunities abound to experience different takes on Shakespeare. Longtime fans of Shakespeare can rejoice over the range of choices, and people who’ve never seen his plays can get their feet wet and both might learn something in the process.