Today's Times Business section has an article called "Lessons in Shakespeare, From Stage to Boardroom" that I recommend heartily: one of the funniest things I've read in ages - albeit unintentionally so. A few gems follow under the fold:
Remember Ken Adelman ( one of founders, if I'm not mistaken, of that pack of jackals we've since come to know and love as the neo-CONS) : he and his wife, Carol, "have been dressing managers in Elizabethan costumes since the 1990's. Senior executives have been increasingly joining the classes and re-enacting the speech in which Henry V urges his 'band of brothers' to fight to the death."
Then we have Stephen Coleman, of Shakespeare & Company, "who said he noticed the chief executives in a recent audience grow pale as he played the role of Hamlet confronted by the ghost of his father. 'The ghost demands, if you love me, you will avenge my murder.' The CEO's told him, Mr Coleman said, 'This is the dilemma we face: what is our responsibility to shareholders, to employees, to clients.'" Say what? You can't make this stuff up. Finally we have one James Fugitte, CEO of Wind Energy Corporation, who finds inspiration in Falstaff: "It's a Falstaffian world. When I began my career, there was a scarcity of capital. Now there's an abundance of capital. Falstaff, he added, c'est moi." Oh. Fellas, make the friggin' widgets and leave Shakespeare out of it.
On second thought, this isn't funny: this is terrifying. Where is S. J. Perelman whne you need him?
1 comment:
Alas, only Michael A. Perelman here.
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