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| S4K Romeo - Bahrain preview (3) Gulf Daily News |
Shakespeare as you like it...BY LES HORTON, Posted on » Thursday, May 14, 2009 Anyone who studied Shakespeare at school will tell you that his work is not the easiest to understand. It is valued because of the richness of its language, which is English, but not as we know it today. Hence, most people suffer it at school, maybe even see a play or two performed, but it rarely makes it to the bookshelves for consumption at home. There have been various attempts over the years to take Shakespeare to the masses, including rewriting his prose into modern-day language, much to the angst of scholars and purists. They have argued that there is no point in giving the masses such a simplified version of the Bard's work, that it bears little or no resemblance to the real thing. There is some strength to this argument, but I would answer that if you can get children or even adults interested in classic literature by giving them a palatable taste, they may go on to read the original works - keeping them alive for another generation. One UK-based production group, Shakespeare 4 Kidz, is committed to taking this heritage to children as young as five, in a manner which they can understand and today it stages its own version of Romeo and Juliet in Bahrain, with two shows at the Salman Cultural Centre, Gudaibiya. The shows take place at 11.30am and 6.30pm, with tickets at BD12 for children and BD15 for adults - which is expensive, but if you can stretch to it, it may well be worth it. I have to admit to being roasted more than once for falling asleep during Shakespeare lessons at Kingston Secondary Modern Boys School, Stafford, in my native England, where most of the 'literature' was scrawled on the lavatory walls. But my interest was finally awakened by the magic of seeing two of his plays - Twelfth Night and Coriolanus, performed live at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, by the river in Stratford-upon-Avon. I saw Twelfth Night exactly 40 years ago and it featured a very young (now Dame) Judi Dench, whose delicious legs set my 14-year-old heart pumping. Hardly an academic interest but, as the man himself would say - as you like it! This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Click here to see the original article online at the Gulf Daily News website |
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"It was quite an extraordinary performance and the children were mesmerised from the outset." |
