Proving an unmitigated success, the annual Playing Shakespeare season at The Globe promises to enthral, engage and entertain thousands more teenagers this spring. Susan Elkin is a huge, well wrapped up fan
Anyone who doubts that Shakespeare still speaks to young people should get along to The Globe to see The Taming of the Shrew which runs until 25 March. And take with you any naysayer of your acquaintance who says that Shakespeare is too difficult for, or irrelevant to, teenagers.
Since 2007 Shakespeare’s Globe has been offering an annual thrilling, vibrant 90 minute version of a fully staged play for secondary school and A level students. Known as “Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank” the project runs each spring. And the audience atmosphere – pulsing with energy – is like nothing I see or hear for the whole of the rest of the year anywhere else.
When I saw Othello in 2015, for example, the young audience gasped audibly at Iago’s perfidy and at the racist lines in the text. And during the strangling of Desdemona (beautifully played by Bethan Cullinane) at the hands of Lloyd Everitt’s glamorous, and later hideously distraught, Othello some of those young watchers had horrified hands over mouths. They also whooped during kissing and cheered protagonists on during the fights – like proper Elizabethan groundlings. Rarely have I seen and heard so many young people so passionately engaged in theatre. There were similar horrified reactions at some of the lines in the 2014 The Merchant of Venice and in Romeo and Juliet in 2013. Try discussing forced marriage with teenagers in multicultural London, for example.
This year’s The Taming of the Shrew, featuring Gloria Onitri as Katherina and Alex Gaumond as Petruchio, is bound to invoke similar reactions because Shakespeare ensures there’s a huge central controversy to confront the audience. What do we now feel about a woman being treated like a hawk which has to be cowed into submission and obedience? Does Katherina eventually succumb or has she done a deal with Petruchio with whom she has by then fallen in love? Is it, actually, a play about equality? Plenty to discuss and think about and I know the audience will react with audible and visible horror to lines such as “I swear I’ll cuff you if you strike again” and “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper/Thy head, thy sovereign”.
As director Jacqueline Defferary says: “The most important thing is the play itself. Every time I go back to the text I find more. It might be an idea for costume, music or something else, but it’s all there.”
Nothing is dumbed down in these shows. Money is invested in design, music and fine actors so production values are as high as for any other play at the Globe. The text, moreover, although abridged, is all Shakespeare.
The Taming of the Shrew is the eleventh production in Globe Education’s Playing Shakespeare series. Over the years 150,000 or so students from London secondary schools have seen one of these performances – free. The scheme, which was extended to include Birmingham schools in 2015, now reaches 20,000 young people per year.
Participating schools also have access to supporting workshops and online resources – there’s a wonderful, freely available section devoted to The Taming of the Shrew on the Globe’s website, for instance. It includes a scene by scene breakdown, access to blog posts by characters, lots of terrific photographs, interviews to watch and more.
Over 200 teachers can take part in CPD sessions too, so the whole project ensures that many young people get a decent introduction to the wonders of Shakespeare. Also on the website is detailed information about and access to several of the previous productions in the series.
And the best thing about it is that the tickets for the performances are free for state schools thanks to Deutsche Bank.
But wear lots (and lots) of clothes. Because this is an education project it has to take place before the main Globe season starts. And open air theatre in March in London can be a chilly business. Enthusiasm and excitement seem to keep the students warm. Their elders may need more layers.
www.shakespearesglobe.com/education/teachers/playing-shakespeare
The Taming of the Shrew runs from 28 February to 25 March. Until 15 March it is available only to state secondary schools in London and Birmingham. Tickets are free. After that, year 6 groups, independent schools and colleges may book and pay. There are also some family performances.