Director Julie Taymor, who staged a production Off-Broadway in 1994 and directed a film version in 1999, says she was drawn to the play because she found it to be the most "relevant of Shakespeare's plays for the modern era." As she believes we live in the most violent period in history, Taymor feels that the play has acquired more relevance for us than it had for the Victorians; "it seems like a play written for today, it reeks of now." Jonathan Forman, when he reviewed Taymor's film for the "New York Post", agreed and stated: "It is the Shakespeare play for our time, a work of art that speaks directly to the age of Rwanda and Bosnia."