WHEN William Shakespeare wrote "All the world's a stage",he had not imagined a festival where all 37 of his plays will be presented in as many languages by theatre groups from across the globe. This will be a reality at the six-week-long World Shakespeare Festival 2012 starting April 23 - the Bard's birth anniversary - at Shakespeare's Globe theatre in London. And the first such initiative by the theatre,also called Globe to Globe,will have a strong Indian flavour as well. Mumbai-based theatre groups,the Company Theatre and Arpana - the first Indian groups to perform at this venue - are currently working on the Hindi version of Twelfth Night and All's Well That Ends Well in Gujarati,respectively. "The very idea of performing at Shakespeare's Globe is a great high," says Atul Kumar,founder of Company Theatre. Kumar was approached by the London-based theatre nearly a year ago to adapt and direct a play by the Bard in Hindi. From the options given to him,Kumar chose Twelfth Night which he feels is akin to a Bollywood entertainer with its theme of mistaken identities,gender confusion,pining lovers and ultimately a happy ending marking the triumph of love. The script for the Hindi version,tentatively titled Baaranvi Raat,is written by actor-director Rajat Kapoor. The play will be performed on April 27 and 28. Since the cosmopolitan city of London has a sizeable Gujarati population,the theatre wanted one of Shakespeare's plays enacted in Gujarati too. Tom Bird,Festival Director of Globe to Globe,asked Arpana's Sunil Shanbag to take charge of its direction. In Shanbag's production,titled Sau Saru Jenu Chevat Saru,he has changed the setting of All's Well from France and Italy to Saurashtra and Mumbai while the characters belonging to European nobility are now from the 19th century Gujarati mercantile class. "I chose this play as it can be adapted easily into an Indian scenario. That apart,this play has many layers. Though it is largely accepted as a comedy,it also has the trappings of a tragedy," he says. It will be staged on May 23 and 24.
