Many tongues pay homage to the Bard on his birthday as Globe opens up to world

This might look like a performance of The Maori Wives Of Windsor but this traditional New Zealand haka or traditional war dance will form part of a production of another of Shakespeare’s plays.
By The Newsroom
Published 24th Apr 2012, 07:00 BST

Members of the Ngakau Toa theatre company are kicking off an international festival of the bard’s work with their version of Troilus and Cressida.

Yesterday’s performance on the Bard’s birthday is the first of a season at Shakespeare’s Globe, on London’s South Bank, which will see 37 of his plays produced in 37 different languages.

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The Globe To Globe festival will see other performances include a Sudanese Cymbeline, Love’s Labour’s Lost in British Sign Language and Hamlet in Lithuanian.

Festival director Tom Bird said: “We are hugely excited to throw open our doors to the world.

“This festival offers the chance to see well-known plays in a new way, with the cultural influences and theatre conventions of countries you may never have visited.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience Shakespeare’s work in a way that you’re unlikely ever to have seen it before, and a chance for the communities of London to hear his stories in their mother tongue.”

Mr Bird said the project was proof of the “universal appeal of Shakespeare”.

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