Subverting a Universally and Culturally Biased Shakespeare

This chapter suggests that while Shakespeare’s cultural significance, educational value, and national heritage make a strong case for his inclusion in a range of applied theatre projects, there remain criticisms relative to his relevance, accessibility, universality, and cultural bias. The chapter suggests combining historicisation and new historicism, as a literary framework, alongside Brecht’s verfremdungseffekt as a theatrical framework as a method of subverting the universalisation of Shakespeare’s plays and overcoming some of the culturally biased challenges found in combining Shakespeare’s work with applied theatre formats.