By The Associated Press
Shakespeare said all the world’s a stage. Next spring, all the world will be on stage at Shakespeare’s Globe theater.
The theater is planning a six-week run of the bard’s 38 works — to be performed in 38 languages by troupes from around the world.
The theater says the project will celebrate the London 2012 Olympic games and mark the first time all Shakespeare’s plays will be performed in one season.
“Titus Andronicus” in Cantonese, a Shona version of “The Two Gentleman of Verona,” and an Urdu performance of “The Taming of the Shrew” are all expected to take the stage when the season kicks off on April 23, 2012 — the bard’s birthday.
The project will build an international community around the playwright’s word, which have long transcended the stage, said the Globe’s artistic director.
“Shakespeare, as well as a great playwright, has become an international language, and has proved one of the most life-affirming and barrier-transcending ways that people can speak to one another,” Dominic Dromgoole said. “His plays have been translated into every major living language and there is a long tradition of Shakespeare performances around the world in people’s own vernacular.”
The program will create an international Shakespeare community in London as “a prelude to the internationalism, which will fill the capital later in the year with the Olympics,” Dromgoole said.
It will not be the first time the Globe has welcomed Shakespeare in translation. The Zulu “Macbeth” and Grupo Galpao’s “Romeo and Juliet” from Brazil have previously taken the famed stage.
The Globe also said Friday it will build an indoor Jacobean theater to seat around 320 people. The design will be based on plans of a small 17th century indoor theater, similar in shape and design to the Blackfriars Theatre where Shakespeare’s King’s Men acting company performed.
The Globe opened in 1997 after more than 27 years planning and four years’ construction.
