The triumphant return of Shakespeare In The Park

IT seems to have been conceived as a party for the younger generations: Shakespeare’s iambic pentameters are sometimes sung to hip-hop music. The giddy, gaudy production designs are perfect for Instagram and TikTok. The Gen Z obsession with gender fluidity and non-binary identities are honoured with boys dressed like girls and girls dressed like boys. There’s even a runway extending out of the stage for actors to vogue, sashay and swivel RuPaul-style.

The combined effect of it all is an exuberant, post-pandemic, go-woke-or-go-broke celebration which defies the fact that its source material is an Elizabethan-era play written 430 years ago.

Singapore Repertory Theatre makes a return to Shakespeare In The Park (SITP) after a five-year hiatus with A Midsummer Night’s Dream – and boy, is it making up for lost time. Rarely has its SITP production been this much enjoyable and au courant, even if previous titles such Julius Caesar (2018) and Twelfth Night (2012) were top-notch productions.