Shakespeare … and then some

The Shakespeare Company in Washington is kept alive by the politicians and staffers who find the classical plays’ themes relevant to their day-to-day lives on Capitol Hill.

Art Director Michael Kahn is partially inspired by current events for each new theater season. In 1994 when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) proposed her healthcare initiative, Kahn chose to produce “The Doctor’s Dilemma.”

Kahn said he is “thrilled to be in Washington, D.C.” where he has an “immensely intelligent audience” who can immediately recognize and relate to the plays’ political themes.

Supreme Court justices, House members and senators alike frequent the Shakespeare Company’s performances. During President Clinton’s term, Chelsea Clinton was a regular attendee and is still a financial donor.

Politicians are not only patrons but have been involved on stage as well. Supreme Court justices have even performed small roles in mock trials.

The themes of Shakespeare’s plays particularly appeal to the D.C. audience, focusing on issues about politics, power, and the differences between the private and public man.

The Shakespeare company receives most of its funding through philanthropies, but Kahn has noticed a decrease of funding since he took the position 20 years ago.

“I don’t think the National Endowment for the Arts has been given enough money to really give the kind of support the arts need in the country,” Kahn said, although The Shakespeare Company did receive a grant from the NEA this year.

Kahn believes this lack of funding is partly due to current economic issues but feels the art industry is still recovering from times when artists pushed the envelope. The political spectrum dubbed this experimentation immoral and viewed art as the enemy, cutting federal funding.

“The arts are supposed to enlighten and question the status quo and I think now there is much less concern about that in the country,” said Kahn.

The Shakespeare Company is spreading art awareness throughout the community to counteract budget cuts to theater and art education. They offer free Shakespeare to the public, bringing in over 30,000 attendees a year.

The company also conducts school theater programs like SHAKESPEARIENCE, which help students to understand classical theater and improve their literacy.

“We feel that if a young person does not have an experience with art when they’re young, there is evidence that they will never be interested when they grow up,” Kahn said of the company’s motivation.

The current season exposes audiences to well-known Shakespeare plays such as “King Lear,” and others like “Dog in the Manger,” a play never before performed. The company always tries to invigorate classics and introduce foreign classics, commissioning its own writers to come up with new adaptations of previously inadequate translations.

In just over 25 years The Shakespeare Company has grown from the Folger Theatre Company, seating only 200, to the Harman Center for the Arts, consisting of two theater halls seating over 1,200. Kahn’s mission is for The Shakespeare Company to become a “classical theater that both Washington and the rest of the country would be proud of.”

The invigorated classical plays prove that the great masterpieces of the 18th century are relatable.

Kahn said “Shakespeare did not write plays in an effort to tell us what to think, but to tell us what to think about,” and the theater at the Shakespeare Company does just that, encouraging some of the greatest political minds to question current events.