Sara Krulwich/The New York Times  Ethan Hawke, left, and Alan Cumming in different productions of âMacbeth.â  Do we really need another âMacbethâ right now?  A new revival, this one starring Ethan Hawke, opened on Nov. 21, four months after the previous Broadway production, starring Alan Cumming, closed. If you fail to see Mr. Hawke reveal what life, which as we know is full of sound and fury, signifies, not to worry: Kenneth Branagh will fill you in next spring, when he brings his production of âMacbethâ to New York.  Classics return quicker than ever these days. (âA Raisin in the Sunâ opens in the spring a decade after the last Broadway production.) But high-profile Shakespeare seems to arrive with the speed of pies on an assembly line. The first three years of this decade have already brought us only one fewer Shakespeare revival on Broadway than in the entire previous decade (which had two âMacbethâ revivals) and the same number as in the 1990s (when we survived somehow without any productions of âMacbethâ).  To be clear, a life without Hamlet and Falstaff and Rosalind (not to mention those rascals Iago and Richard III) is one I do not wish to have. But the overwhelming dominance of a dozen or so classics from one artist has a price. There is limited space in the American theater, particularly for major productions that draw large audiences and media attention. In leaning so heavily on a small repertoire, we are shrinking our theatrical canon, limiting our collective imagination and overlooking other important voices.  The current Shakespeare boom on Broadway is not unprecedented and hardly limited to that most prominent corner of the theater world. Every summer, our parks are overrun with star-crossed lovers and introspective Danes. America is glutted with Shakespeare festivals and theaters. In a 2010 post, the theater blogger Isaac Butler called this our âShakespeare problem,â tabulating over a thousand Shakespeare productions at nonprofit theaters in the first decade of this century. The next most produced playwright was August Wilson, with 146. In the 2012-13 season, Shakespeare was produced 120 times, far more than anyone else.  Besides Shakespeare, when Broadway and major nonprofits look for flashy revivals, they focus on the three heavyweights of 20th century American theater (Williams, OâNeill, Miller) as well as Shaw, Chekhov, Ibsen, Beckett, Pinter, Wilson and a few others. Occasionally, a largely forgotten writer returns to the public eye â Terence Rattigan owes a debt to the Roundabout Theater Company, which in the last few seasons has brought his âMan and Boyâ and âThe Winslow Boyâ to Broadway â but the number of great, long-dead playwrights who receive major productions these days is frustratingly small.  Itâs partly why scrappy troupes like the Mint Theater Company and Red Bull Theater have had success, since they mount overlooked classics. The Mint has produced multiple plays by Harley Granville Barker and Teresa Deevy, gifted writers from a century ago who have been long ignored by our large theaters. Red Bull has proved that much older plays by Shakespeare contemporaries such as John Webster, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Middleton can be terrifically entertaining to todayâs audiences.  But big New York theaters rarely produce such unfamiliar voices. Foreign writers like Pedro de la Barca CalderÃ³n or Friedrich Schiller only occasionally receive ambitious stagings. (There was a rare 2009 Broadway revival of Schillerâs âMary Stuart,â imported from London.) The comic master MoliÃ¨re has moved from being a staple of the theatrical diet to an occasional side dish.  The same Broadway that gives us two versions of the Scottish play this year hardly ever produces revivals anymore by â to name just a few â Bertolt Brecht, Somerset Maugham, Sean OâCasey â not to mention Sophocles (last on the Great White Way in 1998). Classic Greek dramas hold the kind of grand, flexible roles that draws many to Shakespeare â especially for women. What would Cherry Jonesâs Electra look like? How about Mr. Hawkeâs Dionysus?  Instead, American producers return to âHamlet,â âMacbeth,â âKing Lear.â By relentlessly reviving Shakespeareâs greatest hits â a few more looks at âTroilus and Cressidaâ or even âRichard IIâ would be nice â they sell the audience short.  The reason for so much Shakespeare is not just because producers are all language-drunk idealists with a fierce commitment to iambic pentameter. Nor is Shakespeare a sure thing at the box office: âRomeo and Julietâ on Broadway has struggled mightily, scheduled to close a month earlier than planned even with Orlando Bloom as Romeo.  Mr. Bloomâs Broadway debut is an example of one key driver: simple old-fashioned star power. The great Shakespeare roles still have the most cultural cachet for actors, who get taken more seriously and, in many cases, are energized by performing the parts they read or tackled in school.  Audiences are also more comfortable with these plays because they are familiar. Shakespeare is far more commercial (or at least marketable) than many people think. After all, the works benefit from being constantly promoted by English and drama teachers throughout the country. Strindberg in the Park would find it much tougher to sell blocks of tickets to law firms.  Shakespeare is also the kind of playwright you can build a capital campaign around. Theater for a New Audience produced John Ford and Middleton in its former spaces, but the first season in its beautiful new $ 70 million permanent home features âMidsummer Nightâs Dreamâ and âKing Lear.â And its promotional material sold one writer: You can buy âa seat for Shakespeareâ for $5,000.  While it was seen as a major departure when the movie director Joss Whedon followed âThe Avengersâ with âMuch Ado About Nothingâ this year â the comic-book director getting serious â Marvel and Shakespeare have much in common. They are both crowd-pleasing brands that almost every American is exposed to before becoming an adult. But I doubt even comic book fans would put up with such extreme lack of variation. Broadway musicals recycle movies, and Hollywood remakes horror movies, but they donât feed us a steady diet of the exact same scripts.  Having a cycle of classical plays constantly on loop in New York theaters does have significant advantages. Itâs fascinating to see the radically different way that Kevin Spacey in 2012 and Mark Rylance now perform the opening monologue of âRichard III.â The familiarity of these plays makes you focus more on the details.  No plays get better with repeated viewings the way Shakespeareâs do. Thatâs not merely because of the complexity of language, thought, character and emotional landscape in his work. Itâs the way his plays can be interpreted so differently by actors, directors and designers. Itâs an odd fact that often the least compelling reason to see productions of the plays of the greatest playwright who ever lived is the writing.
Thereâs plenty of Shakespeare on stages from Broadway to community theater, and thatâs not always a good thing.