If the universal nature of Shakespeare's stories needs further proof, the place of Shakespeare on the school timetables of countries as diverse as Australia, China, Italy, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine, among many others, should be ample.
Fifty percent of the world's schoolchildren, some 64 million of them, study Shakespeare, according to research by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and the British Council. The focus of such study ranges from a brief introduction to Shakespeare's life and work, to a detailed familiarity with several plays. Seventy percent of the respondents stated Shakespeare was studied due to the intrinsic value of the plays, and their universal human values.
World Shakespeare Festival
The details of the research were announced at the same time as the World Shakespeare Festival, a celebration of Shakespeare as the world's playwright, which takes place from 23 April to November 2012. Companies from around the world will stage their interpretations of Shakespeare's classic works in a variety of languages. Productions include the Portuguese language Two Roses for Richard III, by Brazil's Companhia BufoMecanica, a Russian language A Midsummer Night's Dream, and an Arabic version of Macbeth called Leila and Ben – A Bloody History. Shakespeare's Globe has a particularly ambitious venture, Globe to Globe, which will see 37 of Shakespeare's plays performed in 37 languages over the course of six weeks.
Global Shakespeare
“Shakespeare is no longer English property,” said Michael Boyd, Artistic Director of the RSC, at the launch of the festival. “He is the favourite playwright and artist of the whole world, and studied at school by half the world's children. People of all races, creeds and continents have chosen to gather around his work to share stories of what it is like to be human. To fall in love or fall from grace. To be subject to the abuse of power or to live with the dreams of angels in the shadow of our own mortality.”
The World Shakespeare Festival aims to create an educational legacy for young people through the following means:
- An international education conference Worlds Together
- A new World Shakespeare Festival Arts Award open to young people between the ages of 11 and 25
- A collaboration with the British Council called Shakespeare: A Worldwide Classroom
- The launch of specially commissioned digital materials for schools and students in a new collaboration between the RSC and BBC Learning called Shakespeare Unlocked.
While it is received wisdom that studying a classic text at school is the quickest way to ensure a child hates it, the plays of Shakespeare retain a key place in the world's consciousness. All it takes is a good production for all the awkward words to make the most wonderful sense.
Paris Franz - Paris Franz is a London-based freelance journalist, specialising in the arts, history and travel.
