1st Edition

World-Wide Shakespeares Local Appropriations in Film and Performance

Edited By Sonia Massai Copyright 2006
    216 Pages
    by Routledge

    216 Pages
    by Routledge

    Drawing on debates around the global/local dimensions of cultural production, an international team of contributors explore the appropriation of Shakespeare’s plays in film and performance around the world.

    In particular, the book examines the ways in which adapters and directors have put Shakespeare into dialogue with local traditions and contexts. The contributors look in turn at ‘local’ Shakespeares for local, national and international audiences, covering a range of English and foreign appropriations that challenge geographical and cultural oppositions between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, and ‘big-time’ and ‘small-time’ Shakespeares.

    Responding to a surge of critical interest in the poetics and politics of appropriation, World-Wide Shakespeares is a valuable resource for those interested in the afterlife of Shakespeare in film and performance globally.

    List of contributors  Acknowledgements  Introduction  1. Defining Local Shakespeares Sonia Massai  Part 1: Local Shakespeares for Local Audiences  2. A Branch of the Blue Nile: Derek Walcott and the Tropic of Shakespeare Tobias Döring  3. Political Pericles Suzanne Gossett  4. ‘Shylock as Crypto-Jew: A New Mexican Adaptation of The Merchant of Venice’ Elizabeth Klein and Michael Shapiro  5. Negotiating Intercultural Spaces: Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet on the Chinese Stage Ruru Li  6. ‘It is the bloody business which informs thus … ’ Local Politics and Performative Praxis: Macbeth in India Poonam Trivedi  Part 2: Local Shakespeares for National Audiences  7. Relocating and Dislocating Shakespeare in Robert Sturua’s Twelfth Night and Alexander Morfov’s The Tempest Boika Sokolova  8. "I am not bound to please thee with my answers": The Merchant of Venice on the German Stage Sabine Schülting  9. Abusing the Shrew on the Prague stage Marcela Kostihová  10. ‘Shooting the Hero: The Cinematic Career of Henry V from Laurence Olivier to Philip Purser’ Ton Hoensellars  11. Lamentable Tragedy or Black Comedy: Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s Adaptation of Titus Andronicus Lukas Erne  12. Subjection and Redemption in Pasolini’s Othello Sonia Massai  13. "Meaning by Shakespeare" South of the Border  Alfredo Modenessi  14. Dreams of England Robert Shaughnessy  15. The Cultural Logic of "Correcting" The Merchant of Venice  Maria Jones  Part 3: Local Shakespeare for International Audiences  16. Dancing with Art: Robert Lepage’s Hamlet  Margaret Jane Kidnie  17. Hekepia? The Mana of the Maori Merchant Mark Houlahan  18. The Haiku Macbeth: Shakespearean Antithetical Minimalism in Kurosawa’s Kumonosu-jo Saviour Catania Afterword Adaptation/Appropriation Barbara Hodgdon

    Biography

    Sonia Massai is a Lecturer at King’s College London. She has published articles on Shakespearean appropriations and edited Titus Andronicus (New Penguin) and The Wise Woman of Hoxton (Globe Quartos). Her current projects include a book on Shakespeare and the Rise of English Drama in Print.

    'A very significant contribution to the growing body of critical literature on Shakespeare appropriations within specific theatrical and critical traditions around the globe.' - Jill Levenson, University of Toronto, Canada

    'Massai's definition and focus on the importance of "locality" in worldwide Shakespeare appropriations challenges, even as it extends, other recent scholarship tracing Shakespeare's "afterlife".' - Robert Sawyer, East Tennessee State University, USA

    'World-Wide Shakespeares is undoubtedly a valuable and timely addition to our understanding of what artists are doing to and with Shakespeare across the globe and how their work signifies both locally and internationally.' - Robert Ormsby, Review of Literature