It is for this reason that one cannot, I don’t think, stage an abridged version of any of Shakespeare’s plays and not lose something beyond the scenes that are omitted. The parts are too interdependent, the whole is too organic for the meaning to be treated so categorically. You cannot cut, or abbreviate, or edit a work of art in the same way you can edit a restaurant menu, or even a work of journalism. You cannot even take out the boring parts of Moby-Dick.