Re-Shakespeare-ing

Des McAnuff is putting the Shakespeare back into his Shakespeare FestivalLiterally. As previously mentioned the Stratford Festival is renaming itself the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in an effort to nominally and artistically reconnect to its roots. As a result, the 2008 season leans more heavily on Shakespeare than it has in recent years. McAnuff recently became the sole artistic director of the Festival, following a tumultuous year in which his two co-artistic directors departed. To help cement this rebooting of the Festival, McAnuff himself is directing a production of Romeo and Juliet.
Artistically, the choice makes sense. After all, a play so focused on young love speaks to the Festival’s desire to recapture its own origins. This Shakespearean renaissance speaks to the struggles facing many Shakespeare Festivals: how to honor their fundamental love of Shakespeare while still providing their audience’s with a diverse array of plays. What role do the other plays serve in a Shakespeare Festival, particularly when many of them are incredibly different stylistically from The Bard’s approach to theatre?Perhaps the differences are part of the goal in selecting seasons. Rather than offer the audience the same thing, festivals can highlight the individuality of works by placing them in increasingly diverse company. A Shakespeare production followed by a Tony Kushner play might allow the audience to more fully appreciate each writer’s unique qualities. Furthermore, it might even highlight the fact that plays that might seem like polar opposites on the surface could have more in common upon closer comparison.