On 15th February many classes of our Liceo spent some carefree hours in Pompei attending a “revolutionary” theatrical version in English .  It was  a youthful, lively and interactive show conceived by Klimax theatre company that offered a revisited, modern, ironic, and captivating performance entitled: “Shakespeare is back”.
Shakespeare is back combines Shakespeare’s work with the language of young people with the aim of helping them understand that the world described by Shakespeare is not so far from the one in which we live and that reading of his works can shed light on the needs, beliefs and doubts of the contemporary world.

During the performance William wore  the clothes of a dj  who lived in Italy, a country  that inspired  some of his plays centuries ago. He told his biography together with his plays, at the beats of a console. There were five dance moments during the show that gave life to a dance-tale  experience for the students. Moreover he shared the stage with the characters of his most important tragedies and comedies: Romeo, Desdemona, Juliet, Lady Macbeth, Hamlet, Mercutio, Tybalt, Iago, Yorick, Othello and the Nurse that came alive specifically for him and for us too. The Spook returns was the leit motiv of the show and was repeated just like a mantra over and over by the audience to call each time the main characters of his plays. His famous “Sonnet 18” was offered in a very modern version , as a famous trap hit of the moment. I wonder why if after over four hundred years Shakespeare’s s plays and sonnets  are as vivid and alive today as they were back then. But with so many modern writers,  why should students continue to study Shakespeare? There are many reasons why everyone should be encoraged to read the works of one of the world’s greatest literary giants. His works  continued to be relevant because the themes he covered are timeless and universal. His plays are about revenge, love, marriage,  power, ambition, murder, obssession, dreams,  loyalty,  death, envy and more.  He deals with the majesty of kings,  witchcraft,  family,  jealousy, friendship -there is no area of human emotion that isn’t somewhere in Shakespeare.  Shakespeare had  a wonderful way of exploring is characters’inner lives and desire,  and describing their emotions  in fact many have become the accepted model or archetype for an emotion. When we think of ambition we think of Macbeth,  love and passion- Romeo and Juliet; the evil influence of jealousy- Othelo, welf.doubt-Hamlet, and there are many more. Then there is his language Shakespeare introduced more new words and phrases into the English language than any other playright and  most of them are still in use today. Isn’t it enough!