http://ask.metafilter.com/115818/Wanted-decent-nontraditional-Shakespeare-adaptations Over on Metafilter somebody’s asked for “interesting” adaptations of Shakespeare, either in book, film of play form. The usual suspects are there, Kurosawa, Stoppard, 10 Things I Hate About You, etc… Here’s a few that were new to me: Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well (I didn’t know he did a Hamlet?) A Thousand Clowns (1997, apparently King Lear?) Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet … Wow, either it’s a short list or I’ve just seen a whole lot of Shakespeare adaptations. 🙂
Jane Smiley’s novel A Thousand Acres is King Lear.
I took a gender in lit class that compared Shakespeare plays and modern woman writer’s adaptations of said plays (Lear vs. A Thousand Acres and The Tempest vs. Mama Day among others) and I just read Christopher Moore’s Fool, which is more a riff on Lear than an adaptation, but it is quite good.