b"SHAKESPEARE FOR KIDS? DONT MAKE ME LAUGH! Making a Shakespeare play appealing to young audiences? You could beAustralian idiom. Soliloquies have been turned into songs and the jokes forgiven for thinking its like cooking brussels sprouts for kids. It doesntupdated. matter how much you say how good they are, in the end, they getHad Shakespeare known his plays would still be around 500 years after pushed to the side of the plate.he wrote them, I think he would hate to imagine us being loyal to his Its one of the challenges facing playwright Hilary Bell as she adapts aancient jokes. As long as its in the spirit of the original, I think you have rollicking Shakespearean comedy into Take Two: A Comedy of Errors forthe freedom to do what you like.Riversides National Theatre of Parramatta. Take Two is geared to young audiences but its important to write for the The idea is to create a play for primary school aged children, manyadults in the room, too, says Bell. of whom will have never been to the theatre before and to give them aI want to engage and entertain them just as much. I hate it when you foothold into Shakespeare, says Bell.see adults sitting up the back on Facebook or just zoning out. Taking But I also wanted to make something that would introduce them toa child to a show is something you should be able to share and to talk theatre more broadly. So many children are fixated on their screens,about afterwards. I don't like the sort of children's theatre that is just whether its their phones or the TV, the screens in supermarkets andmass babysitting for an hour.train stations. Its inescapable and you cant compete with their CGITake Two: A Comedy of Errors is Bells second play for children for pyrotechnics. So I thought, well, what can theatre do that a screen cantRiversides National Theatre of Parramatta. Her adaptation of Shaun Tans do? book The Red Tree was recently revived for a season at Sydney Opera The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeares earliest and funniestHouse and Arts Centre Melbourne.plays, a tale of two sets of twins separated in infancy.And as any playwright who writes for young audiences will tell you, kids Antipholus and his servant Dromio arrive in the exotic port city Ephesusare the most ruthless critics around.searching for their long-lost twin brotherswho just happen to be calledThere's absolutely no room for indulgence, Bell says. In a play for Antipholus and Dromio.adults, you can sometimes get away with beautiful language, but when Neither pair is aware of the others presence and all manner of romanticyou write for children you have to be quite brutal. If its not meaningful, or and financial confusion arises as the twin masters unwittingly exchangeif its not funny, or if it doesnt advance the story, out it goes.their clueless servants. Bell applies the same thinking to The Comedy of Errors, which, even Its the perfect framework to explore what is unique to theatre, says Bell.though its one of the shortest plays Shakespeare wrote, still has some It shows kids how versatile actors can be and how to suspend yourwindy passages. disbelief. Its one big, dazzling magic trick, really.To make the play more relatable to modern audiences, Bell has translated the dialogue from Shakespearean English into contemporary 52"