One Shakespeare play in 6 languages

BARD WITH A TWIST: The play brought to life by an infusion of multilingual performers from India and Sri Lanka.

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London: The recreation of Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been brought to life in London by an infusion of multilingual performers from India and Sri Lanka, various Asian dance styles and acrobatics is a theatrical delight.

With actors from different backgrounds, languages and skills, director Tim Supple says it was the performers who shaped the play.

"I chose the performers and took what they brought. The languages were what they knew. It was same with the performances. There’s Kalari, Tamil folk dance, stick work, Bharatnatyam,” says Tim.

For those people who find Shakespearean English hard to follow, Shakespeare in seven different languages might seem like a nightmare, except its not.

The constant transition between Shakespearean English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Sinhala, Malayalam and Kannada has been choreographed so well that the audience was very rarely lost in translation.

“They were really shocked that Shakespeare can be done like this. They didn't know that Indians can do Shakespeare like this, so they were curious, but we were even more curious than them as we wanted to see if they would accept us and they did,” says actor, Ajay Kumar.

And then of course there are the stunning silk rope performances, stick dances and the bright colours that Asians are synonymous with, that’s led to standing ovations at Shakespeare's own home, Stratford upon Avon.

“It's unheard of, but in Stratford upon Avon we got standing ovations every night and we told people, in our country it’s like this, the colours, the clothing. We are vibrant, we speak loudly, we think loudly,” says another actor, Chandan.

The group that got together a year ago in Mumbai, toured India for a few weeks and are now beginning their UK tour. Plans are to perform in India again at the end of 2007, so if you missed the first time round, this might be your chance.