Actors from around the world will converge on London next year to stage all of Shakespeare’s plays in 37 different dialects and styles, from a hip-hop Othello to The Comedy of Errors in Farsi.
The six-week marathon at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre begins on April 23 and is timed to coincide with festivities celebrating the London 2012 Olympic Games.
From the opening production of Troilus and Cressida by a Maori company from New Zealand – complete with the haka warrior dance – the programme will showcase talents from all corners of the planet, from Argentina to Belarus.
A company from South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, will take part with a production of Cymbeline in Juba Arabic, while Afghanistan’s Roy-e-Sabs company will leave Kabul for the first time to show The Comedy of Errors.
Fans can take in the whole season for just £100, €115 or pick and choose with tickets costing from €5.7 a show to stand in the Globe’s yard.
Among the performances is a version of The Tempest from a company in Bangladesh and a rendition of Richard III in Mandarin by the National Theatre of China. The Merchant of Venice, a play often accused of being anti-Semitic, will be performed in Hebrew by Israel’s Habima national theatre company.
A British company will perform a version of Love’s Labour’s Lost in sign-language, and a Chicago-based troupe will mix up and set the passion of Othello to original beats.
Many of the plays will feature dance and music as they reinterpret Shakespeare’s tales for modern audiences.
A Pakistani company will feature live singers and musicians playing bhangra music in its Urdu production of The Taming of the Shrew, and a version of Coriolanus is being staged by the expressive Japanese company Chiten.
Shakespeare’s Globe, on the south bank of the River Thames, is a reconstruction of the original, circular open-air Globe Theatre, for which The Bard wrote many of his greatest plays.
Dominic Dromgoole, the artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, said: “It is very inclusive. It tries to celebrate internationalism and conversation between people of different nationalities.
“It is a great way to get people to talk through a common language – just as some people can communicate to each other through sport, we are going to talk to each other through Shakespeare.”
The programme, which opens with a production of the poem Venus and Adonis by a South African group, will see almost 85 hours of Shakespeare performed at the Globe – with no subtitles.
Mr Dromgoole was confident they could fill the seats, saying English-speaking fans would enjoy seeing well-known plays in a different language, but added that the theatre would also try to get native speakers to come and watch.
“If people show enough cultural curiosity... then we should be fine,” he said.
Factbox
• William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was an English poet and playwrighter, widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”.
• At the age of 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith.
• Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men.
• Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century.
• His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright for the King’s Men.
• His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
• The Bard died on April 23, 1616 and was buried in his hometown in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death. The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in 2008.