The roles give Franken a chance to flex his acting muscles in a way Canadian scripts rarely require. You're not really feeling that you're exercising your craft. Shakespeare demands you exercise every bit of it. You're allowed larger themes. Franken says many Canadian scripts don't measure up.
People are afraid to be blunt.
And I think that's a big mistake. Of course, Franken finds little to quibble with when it comes to Shakespeare, which he says challenges actors to rise to their full potential. You can't put anything on top of it. You have to come out of the rhythm of the text and out of the language of the text, but it's all there. And it's a matter of trusting that and trusting yourself.