THERE was a missive going around Facebook the other day informing people: “Romeo and Juliet is not a love story, it’s a three-day relationship between a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old. Sincerely, everyone who actually who read it.”

It made me smile.

A similar point was made by the Playhouse production Romeo and Juliet: Unzipped a few weeks ago.

The reaction from the mainly teenage audience was immediate and obvious; they hadn’t really considered that these characters are little more than children who are under pressure from their parents and their friends to conform.

Romeo and Juliet rebel, overreact and do many silly things, in the way of teenagers through the ages.

And the Playhouse production was a great attempt at helping young people see that the play needn’t be inaccessible, and it isn’t boring or irrelevant to the lives they lead today.

Another theatre group that’s doing a great job in a similar vein is Propeller.

The all-male theatre group performed The Merchant of Venice at the Arts Centre in October. It was an hour-long, pared down version that conveyed the drama, themes and meaning brilliantly to the, again mainly teenage, audience.

They are currently touring schools with Henry V, and will be at Bishop Wordsworth’s next week. They’re one of those theatre groups that are always worth watching.

It’s good to see so many options around to help young people understand and – more importantly, enjoy – Shakespeare.

We live in a world where children are logged in and online pretty much as often as they can get away with. They live in a fastpaced world of instant access and bite-sized chunks of information.

But this doesn’t mean they can’t, or won’t, be engaged by great works of literature, plays or art. However, it probably does mean that the way we engage them has to be different.

It needs to be quicker, sharper – more savvy. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat and Instagram have the benefit of already having teenagers’ attention.

Although, even there you have to move fast to keep up; the last Taking Stock with Teens survey carried out in October showed that only 23 per cent of teenagers rated Facebook as the most important social networking site, compared to 42 per cent the previous year.

The reasons they gave were ‘too many adults’ and ‘over-sharing’. We should give them more credit than we do.

Another post going around Facebook this week reads ‘the best sign of a healthy relationship is no sign of it on Facebook’.

Far too many adults think “my hubby is the best in the world. I Luuuurve you so much, honey bear” is something other people want to read. For heaven’s sake, just tell him in the privacy of your own home – and spare the rest of us.

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