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Kral Lear (King Lear)

Coleman, Basil 1981

The productions of King Lear in Turkey over the years have included many famous actors playing the title role: Cüneyt Gökçer in 1958 and 1980, Çetin Tekindor in 2002, and Haluk Bilginer in 2018. King Lear is a play often read but rarely performed for many reasons one of which is the need for a stellar cast, even in the small roles. Cüneyt Gökçer, who also served as the General Art Director of the Turkish State Theatres (Devlet Tiyatroları) between 1958 and 1983, takes a bold step himself, and takes on Lear, one of the world’s most tragic figures. Read More

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Forget Hamlet / Ophelia’s Window

Daood, Monadhil 2020

Ophelia’s Window was performed in 2020 in Baghdad, Iraq and directed by Monadhil Daood, who previously directed “Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad” and performed in other Shakespeare-derived Arabic plays including Sulayman Al-Bassam’s “Al-Hamlet Summit” (as Polonius) and “Richard III” (as Catesby).

Exiled Iraqi playwright and director Jawad al-Assadi wrote and originally staged the play Ophelia’s Window in 1994 in Cairo, Egypt. The play (loosely allegorizing Saddam Hussein as Claudius) was later published as Forget Hamlet in 2000; this is its first performance inside Iraq. Margaret Litvin, Associate Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Boston University, has translated the play into English.

Synopsis

Ophelia watches Claudius murder the king and inaugurate a reign of terror unopposed by passive Hamlet. Claudius orders blind dissident Laertes tortured and liquidated; silences Gertrude; tries to seduce Ophelia; and sends two goons to assassinate Hamlet. A pair of gravediggers provides sarcastic commentary throughout. Read More

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Moore – a Pacific Island Othello

Richter, Kepano (Stephen); Taft Mattos, Justina 2020

MOORE – a Pacific Island Othello is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello, set in the Pacific Islands at the crossroads of Race, Language, and American Empire. Directed by Justina Taft Mattos at the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s Performing Arts Center, the live-stream premiere of the production ran for 1 hour and 48 minutes at 2:00 PM and was performed in English, Japanese, Korean, and ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i on November 1st, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no physical audience in the theater space. The entire production was filmed incorporating the state of Hawaii’s COVID-19 safety protocols: masks, social distancing, and assigning “Ohana bubbles” to actors having physical contact with each other. With the impending 2020 presidential election, rising social unrest, and our present reckoning about systemic racism in the United States, we felt it was high time to revisit Othello and examine what the play means here and now in America on the 416th anniversary of the first recorded performance of Shakespeare’s play. Read More

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Il Re Muore (The King Dies) – Richard II

Angiulli, Laura 2018

Teatro Stabile d’Innovazione Galleria Toledo produced a feature film by the title “Il Re Muore” (The King Dies) directed by Laura Angiulli, founder of Galleria Toledo and company director, and sponsored by the Campania Region and the Italian Ministry of Culture. The movie is freely inspired by the Shakespearean drama “Richard II”, reinterpreting the work in a visionary way, while staying true to the plot and the text. A necessary synthesis which respects the original poetry. Read More

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Rei Lear (King Lear)

Andreato, Elias 2014

Juca de Oliveira plays six roles in this adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear which was translated and adapted by Geraldo Carneiro, directed by Elias Andreato, and premiered in 2014 in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. Read More

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Ricardo III

Módena, Sergio 2014

Gustavo Gasparani and Sergio Módena adapted William Shakespeare’s Richard III into a one man show with Gasparani playing 26 different characters. The text was reworked into a script that introduces a Narrator who conducts the plot and resorts to omissions, additions and interpolations. There are no changes in terms of time or setting. Simplicity sets the tone of the production; set and costume design elements are reduced to a minimum, to stimulate the audience’s imagination. The resources employed aimed at adding a touch of humor and lightness to the story, as well as resonating with the reality and the collective imagination of Brazilian audiences. Read More

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Antony and Cleopatra

Rodrigues, Tiago 2014

Two Portuguese choreographers – Vítor Ruiz and Sofia Dias – were chosen to impersonate Antony and Cleopatra in this adaptation, in which Tiago Rodrigues creates his own text, borrowing freely from Shakespeare’s play and Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. In this show, both actors are on stage: Sofia describes Antony’s behavior, while Vítor characterizes Cleopatra, their lines representing what each character sees, says and does, so that what is usually left off stage – the text’s didascalia – has here been integrated into the text. Read More

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Bond (Merchant of Venice)

Lü, Po Shen 2009

The background of Bond is set in the Song Dynasty of medieval China and the conflict between Jews and Christians becomes one between Tazis (Arabs, Muslims) and Cathayans. The play features strong gender consciousness and also highlights male bonding. It was performed at the British Shakespeare Association’s 2009 Conference and at the Shakespeare Association of America’s 2011 conference. It has also toured China and the U.S. Read More

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Al-Shamma, James 2013

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was directed by James Al-Shamma at the University Playhouse, Texas A&M University-Commerce in Texas. The production ran for two hours and 8 minutes and was performed in English February 19-23 at 8:00 PM and February 24 at 3:00 PM, 2013. Read More

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Romeo & Juliet: at the Globe Theatre

Villela, Gabriel 2000

Grupo Galpão’s Romeu e Julieta is an intercultural adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a production that intentionally draws on a range of popular practices such as street theatre, circus performance and the tradition of the commedia dell’arte, as well as on elements from the cultural imaginary of Minas Gerais in southeast Brazil. This production was staged in 2000 at the Globe Theatre in London. Read More

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Richard III: An Arab Tragedy

Al-Bassam, Sulayman 2007

An adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III set in an unnamed Gulf state. The production, part of Sulayman Al-Bassam’s Shakespeare trilogy, is performed in Arabic and set in the modern Middle East. See also The Al-Hamlet Summit and The Speakers’s Progress. Read More

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The Tempest

Oh, Tae-suk 2011 | 2 Comments

Shakespeare’s The Tempest is transported to 5th century Korea in this dramatic re imagining and adaptation of his final and most poetic play. King Zilzi, immersed in his study of Taoist magic, leaves the care of his kingdom in the hands of King Zabi. While he is away, Zabi takes control and, with the help of Zilzi’s brother, Soji, banishes him from his lands. Read More

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Hamlet

Kurita, Yoshihiro 2007

This 2007 production of Hamlet directed by Yoshihiro Kurita relies on elements of traditional noh theatre and the epic story-telling tradition of Japan to re-imagine Shakespeare’s play. The Hamlet character remains seated at the front of the stage throughout the performance while delivering his lines. Read More

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Lear Dreaming

Ong, Keng Sen 2012

Performed in Bahasa Indonesia, Japanese, Mandarin and Korean with English subtitles. Fifteen years after 1997, Ong Keng Sen revisits his Lear to create a new performance, distilled and visionary, entering one man’s mind, a past king and his memories: Lear Dreaming. Read More

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Macbeth

Teixeira, Ana 2004

Macbeth is a bloodstained drama, drowned in darkness, trespassed by screams of horror. The play is surrounded by a thick mist, where the apparitions confuse the reality of things and the forces of evil, relentlessly invoked, materialized in terrible ways. Read More

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Titus 2.0

Tang, Shu-wing 2009

This minimalist 2009 adaptation of Shakespeare’s bloody and violent play Titus Andronicus is directed by Hong Kong theatre director Tang Shu-wing. Read More

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Otelo da Mangueira

Herz, Daniel 2006-2007 | 2 Comments

Otelo da Mangueira, a musical stage-adaptation directed by Daniel Herz, is an ingenious transposition of Shakespeare’s Othello to the traditional Brazilian universe of the Samba Schools whose pageants attract thousands of tourists from all over the world every year. Gustavo Gasparani, who is the writer of the performance text, has succeeded in metamorphosing the main characters of the Shakespearian plot into a dispute for consecrating the samba-song at Morro da Mangueira, Rio de Janeiro, during the carnival of 1940, which is the year samba was raised to the category of national rhythm. Read More

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Ham-let

Martinez Corrêa, José Celso 1993

With his five-hour production of Ham-let (1993-4), director José Celso Martinez Corrêa, known as Zé Celso, shocked purists who prefer not to see the Shakespearean text desecrated, but he was equally revered by his creative talent. In proposing a Brazilian Hamlet, this exuberant rendition achieves a liberation from the Shakespearean text by proclaiming and celebrating its affiliations to Brazilian culture and themes. Read More

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Macbeth

Cruz, Ulysses 1992 | 2 Comments

Described as “a disturbing reflexion on power”, the Brazilian stage production of Macbeth toured many cities in Brazil in 1992 and became a commercial success despite the negative reviews. Read More

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In Othello

Abel, Roysten 2003

A multicultural theater company in today’s New Delhi is staging a production of Shakespeare’s Othello. The director takes a bold step by casting an inexperienced small town actor as Othello. The new actor falls in love with the leading lady, who is also the director’s love-interest, and the two men become bitter rivals. Things become even more complicated as the actors’ theatrical personae start to seep into their lives outside the theater. Read More

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Desdemona

Ong, Keng Sen 2001

In March 2000, Ong Keng Sen directed Desdemona in which – actors, musicians, designers, video/installation artists – from India, Korea, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Singapore worked together on-stage.  Desdemona premiered at the Adelaide Festival and then went on to the Munich Dance Festival and the Singapore and Hamburg Festivals. This production toured Japan in 2001.

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Othello

Miyagi, Satoshi 2005 | 2 Comments

Cyprus was the setting. A waki (common man, here a Venetian pilgrim) is saddened to see the island under Turkish rule, with Venetian women enslaved by the conquerors. He meets the wandering shites (ghosts) of Desdemona and Othello. Heaven is shut to them. But narrating their experience to the waki cuts away their earthly shackles, sorrow and guilt. The detailing of their catastrophe becomes a community ritual leading to catharsis, repose and liberation. Read More

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Kingdom of Desire

Wu, Hsing-kuo 1986 | One Comment

During the Eastern Chou Dynasty of the Warring State when feudalism was at its peak. The nation of Chi fell prey to the greed and ambitions of the Lord Chancellor, Wei Lie-Bo. East City Defender, Au-Shu, and his deputy, Meng, were called upon to settle the disputes. Read More

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Li’er zaici (Lear is Here)

Wu, Hsing-kuo 2001 | 2 Comments

In 2001, Wu Hsing-kuo, the artistic director of the Contemporary Legend Theatre (CLT, Taipei), returned to the stage after disbanding his company two years earlier. His solo performance of King Lear reflects his own personal struggle to rediscover his own identity as an actor and to define the mission of the CLT in the 21st century. Read More

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Lear’s Daughters

Tse, David 2003 | One Comment

What happened to the three daughters of King Lear before they made their entrances in Shakespeare’s classic? Yellow Earth Theatre presents this seminal work exploring the formative years in three young women’s lives. Read More

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King Lear

Tse, David 2006 | 4 Comments

Lear hands over control of his global business empire to his daughters. In his Shanghai penthouse, he asks them to justify their inheritance. The older sisters flatter their father in elegant Chinese but English educated Cordelia, no longer fluent in her father’s tongue, says “Nothing” and the loss of face sends Lear into a spiral of fury and madness. Read More

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Wangzi fuchou ji (The Revenge of the Prince)

Su, Leci 1994

Wangzi fuchou ji (The Revenge of the Prince) was a 1994 Yueju adaptation of Hamlet directed by Su Leci which was performed at the Shanghai International Shakespeare Festival. Xue Yunhuang was the script writer. The actor who played Hamlet was yueju star Zhao Zhigang. Read the essay “Hamlet in China: Translation, Interpretation and Performance” by Ruru Li for additional information about this production. Read More