Could I write a Pop Shakespeare series and not include Clueless? As if!

I first saw Clueless sometime in the late ’90s—if not in the theater, then shortly after. High school—which was formative for my love of Shakespeare—introduced me to Jane Austen; we read Pride and Prejudice in my junior year. As someone who has always been intrigued (this won’t surprise you) by modern adaptations of the classics, Clueless—which is based on Austen’s novel Emma—was right up my alley. Its enduring popularity makes it a great addition to the Pop Shakespeare series. (In preparation for writing this book, I watched Clueless and then read Emma for good measure.)

This is the first love story I’ve adapted, if by a love story we mean one that ends when lovers come together. The plot is probably closer to one Shakespeare might have created than any of my other books. Therefore, I decided early on that this book would be written as though it could take place in Shakespeare’s time. Although Clueless contains cell phones, computers, cars, TVs, and so on, William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Clueless strips away the technology to leave a tale that could have been written in the 1600s. Mostly. There are still anachronisms—the characters talk about Jason Priestly, the mall, and Beverly Hills—but the setting is the turn of the seventeenth century. I confess that winding the clock backward on the story leads to a few odd moments. In the movie, after Cher is robbed she calls Josh from a pay phone; in my adaptation, he happens along just when she needs him.

I embellished the script of Clueless so that nearly every line has additional content and Shakespearean turns of phrase. As a result, this is my longest Shakespearean-style adaptation of a film, even though Clueless is shorter than most movies I’ve adapted. Only one character has a unique way of speaking; Travis, who is not known for his smarts, has just nine syllables in each of his lines of iambic pentameter. (Devoted readers know that I did the same thing with Jar Jar Binks.) It bears mentioning that I also needed a Shakespearean equivalent to the phrase “As if!” I made each “As if!” from the movie into an anaphora, a device in which multiple lines start with the same words.

Two new characters appear in my adaptation. Balthasar—named for the character of Much Ado About Nothing who sings “Sigh no more, ladies”—provides the music. Clueless is the first movie I’ve adapted that has a soundtrack composed almost entirely of popular music, and the regular appearance of Balthasar is my way of featuring the film’s songs. Jane, the narrator who gives the prologue and epilogue, is my nod to Jane Austen. Strangely, William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Clueless is an adaptation of an adaptation, and as a lifelong reader of Jane Austen I wanted to pay homage to the story’s original creator. Jane’s words are adapted directly from the beginning and end of Emma. (Of course, the wedding my epilogue mentions is the marriage of Lady Geist and Master Hall, not that of Emma and Mr. Knightley.)

Until next time, readers. I hope you enjoyed this merry detour into the ’90s.

The 1590s, that is.