After twenty-five years, the Bell Shakespeare company continues to make the Bard’s body of work relevant and exciting to Australian audiences. It’s creative development arm, named Mind’s Eye, dares artists to explore connections to the contemporary world, and in 2009 they dared to reconcile Shakespeare’s As You Like It with the genre of Hip-hop. The result, Arden, “a 20-minute except that fused text, hip-hop and popular music” and focused on the relationship between Orlando and Rosalind. Conceptually, the production adopts Hip-hop as a performance vehicle for Shakespeare’s words, and this is meant to provide young people of color with access to the larger world of storytelling alive in his plays, and an opportunity to explore its rich intellectual depth.

The intersection between Hip-hop and Shakespeare is explored by  London-based social entrepreneur named Akala through the aural experience of rhythmic speech patterns, themes of power and language, and the platform to question the world around us. It is worth noting that both Akala and Mind’s Eye promote Shakespeare to the youth through educational programs, so too is that these programs center Hip-hop as a medium to make Shakespeare more accessible to young people (specifically, young people of color).

To Hip-hop purists in America, Akala’s company and the Arden production may seem strange because the globalization of Hip-hop is not well known, despite being well documented. To our Shakespeare purists, the combination of Hip-hop and the Folio may seem either natural or degrading. To our counterparts in Australia, the story of Rosalind and Orlando proves fruitful ground for adaptation. Their tale explores issues recognized by the dramaturgs as native themes to Hip-hop such as identity, rebellion, freedom and love.  However strange as it may seem to reconcile Shakespeare with Hip-hop, it is important to recognize these projects as an attempt to manifest Hip-hop’s fifth element, knowledge.
Arden does at times misstep in its appropriation of the culture. The video evidence suggests that Arden is a production that focuses too much on making itself accessible to “young audiences,”  and instead of utilizing rap as a means to vocalize rebellion it interjects hip-hop themes whenever convenient and whenever the story of Rosalind and Orlando lends itself to overt sexualization. Nevertheless, the production is strongest when it demonstrates the compatibility of iambic pentameter with standard hip-hop percussion beats.  Although not perfect, Arden did center actors and performers of color. Hopefully hip-hop is not the only way they get to play these characters, but it succeeds in its conceptualization of an alternative life for the characters in AYLI.

But it fails at providing its audiences with any real “knowledge” outside of the exposure to Shakespearean themes. Combining Shakespeare and Hip-hop, Akala demonstrates, can lead to a rich examination of power and language. To effectively reconcile the two for educational purposes, a productions educational value must go beyond mere exposure to Shakespeare’s work. This could be best explored through the subversive potential both Shakespeare and hip-hop artist employ to make their points.

Whereas a key characteristic of both Hip-hop and Shakespearean writing is the fearless piercing diction, Arden tries too hard to entertain, and not to offend.