“Dreamers Often Lie”: On “Compromise”, the Subversive Documentation of An Israeli-Palestinian Political Adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (original) (raw)

Dreaming of Shakespeare in Palestine

1995

In September 2011, I travelled to the Palestinian Occupied Territories to participate in an internship with the Al Kasaba Theatre in Ramallah. As part of my internship I was invited to attend rehearsals of 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' with students of the Drama Academy Ramallah. Directed by Samer Al-Saber, with movement and choreography by Petra Barghouthi, the production premiered as a work in progress in Palestine before touring to Essen, Germany, where it was presented as part of an Intercultural Shakespeare Festival organised by Folkwang University. In this paper I draw on post-colonial theory to offer some observations about the various strategies of syncretisation that the production seemed to employ in order to localise, indigenise or ‘Palestinian-ise’ Shakespeare’s text. My analysis will attempt to illuminate some of the Palestinian cultural specificity introduced by the syncretic approach as well as offer some assessment of the potential and unintended impact that this approach might have engendered.

Beyond Colonial Tropes: Two Productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Palestine

Critical Survey, 2016

This article documents two Palestinian productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream that took place in Ramallah at Ashtar Theatre in 1995 and Al-Kasaba Drama Academy in 2011. This exploration demonstrates how Shakespearean plays have become a medium for international collaboration and exchange between European and Palestinian theatre training institutions. Recognizing that the works of Shakespeare have been used as a tool to further British imperialist ambitions, and drawing upon the author's own experiences as director of the 2011 production, this article examines the ways in which these two contemporary productions both acknowledge this colonial heritage in Palestine and use it to further the mission of training emerging actors.

A POST-TRUTH SHAKESPEAREAN READING IN MIKE BARTLETT'S THE 47TH: TO WIN OR NOT TO WIN Mike Bartlett'in the 47th Oyununda Post-Truth Bir Shakespeare Okuması: Kazanmak ya da Kazanmamak

Lee McIntyre defines the post-truth age as a period in which, rather than determining how we might discern the truth,-the existence of reality itself became questionable. McIntyre points out that emotions perceived in this context as more important than facts. Post-truth discourse, seen as characterises European and world politics, the Iraq War, the election of Donald Trump, and Brexit ("Take Back Control"), affects presidents' actions and the fate of nations by foregrounding the insignificance of truth. The theatre offers the antidote to a world where people experience a poisoning of their auditory and visual senses by trying to show the truth. Within this context, the impetus behind this study is to demonstrate how Mike Bartlett's second future-history play, The 47 th (2022) exemplifies Trump's struggle to regain power through propaganda and manipulating his supporters with the help of the media, echoing Shakespeare's tragic characters, specifically Richard III's rhetoric and King Lear's decisions. This paper focuses on Mike Bartlett's play to demonstrate how he uses Shakespearean motifs associated with post-truth rhetoric.

Shakespeare's Fools A Piece in a Peacebuilding Mosaic

Critical Survey, 2019

In November 2017, Ratko Mladic, a wartime leader and a commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, was sentenced by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal to life imprisonment for the genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the region the verdict was received with conflicting reactions, emphasising yet again how extensive the ethnic division is within the society. Through close analysis of the theatre project Shakespeare's Comedies performed by ethnically segregated youth in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article aims to understand how Shakespeare's work functions as a vehicle to address the consequences of war and to support the complex process of reconciliation under circumstances in which the issues of war crimes cannot be tackled in a straightforward and direct manner. The study takes a cross-disciplinary approach to research, drawing from theory of reconciliation , applied theatre practice and comedy studies.

Being European: Hamlet on the Israeli Stage

Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance , 2020

One of the most prolific fields of Shakespeare studies in the past two decades has been the exploration of local appropriations of Shakespeare's plays around the world. This article, however, foregrounds a peculiar case of an avoidance of local appropriation. For almost 60 years, repertory Israeli theaters mostly refused to let Hamlet reflect the "age and body of the time". They repeatedly invited Europeans to direct Hamlet in Israel and offered local audiences locally-irrelevant productions of the play. They did so even though local productions of canonical plays in Israel tend to be more financially successful than those directed by non-Israelis, and even when local national and political circumstances bore a striking resemblance to the plot of the play. Conversely, when one Israeli production of Hamlet (originating in an experimental theatre) did try to hold a mirror up to Israeli society-and was indeed understood abroad as doing so-Israeli audiences and theatre critics failed to recognize their reflection in this mirror. The article explores the various functions that Hamlet has served for the Israeli theatre: a rite of passage, an educational tool, an indication of belonging to the European cultural tradition, a means of boosting the prestige of Israeli theatres, and-only finally-a mirror reflecting Israel's "age and body." The article also shows how, precisely because Hamlet was not allowed to reflect local concerns, the play mirrors instead the evolution of the Israeli theatre, its conflicted relation to the Western theatrical tradition, and its growing self-confidence.

Full of noises: when “World Shakespeare” met the “Arab Spring”

Shakespeare, 2015

In summer 2012, to coincide with the Olympic Games, the United Kingdom celebrated a summer of Shakespeare. Troupes from around the world were invited to produce their own versions of plays from the playwright's corpus. 2012 was also a very eventful year, politically, in the Arab world, as people reacted to what had been dubbed the “Arab Spring”. This article looks at three plays produced by Arabic companies for the World Shakespeare Festival: the Palestinian Ashtar Theatre's Richard II, the Iraqi Theatre Company's Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad, and the Tunisian Artistes Producteurs Associés’ Macbeth: Leila and Ben – A Bloody History. Using these performances, this article examines how different Arabic theatre troupes negotiate expectations of different audiences as well as their own artistic aims using the “playable surface” of Shakespeare's plays.

Art of Play in Zones of Conflict-The Case of Israel Palestine

Art of Play in Zones of Conflict-The Case of Israel Palestine

One of the effects of the Israel Palestine conflict, with its deployment of expansive state violence and divisive political rhetoric, is the stifling of critical engagement. This practice-based research project investigates play as a tactic used by artists from within the region to counter this impact by re-igniting participants’ critical engagement. Framed as ‘critical play’ (Flanagan, 2009) the artistic practices under investigation unequivocally deploy ludic forms, mechanics, and attributes to effectively challenge aspects of Israel Palestine’s paradigmatic political situation. Central to the thesis is a theoretical questioning of what is gained by deploying play in artistic practice. It extends Ariella Azoulay’s (2012) call for a more inclusive and participatory stance as a means of opposing Israeli state violence. This study therefore examines artworks that tactically harness play in order to critically and physically engage their audiences. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s (2007) idea of play as a productively disruptive force, the thesis argues that play is uniquely appropriate for creating intimate and social encounters where artists and their audiences can experiment with and enact scenarios relating to Israel Palestine that, when framed and freed as art, can operate critically. The thesis questions how alternative views, narratives of belonging to the body politic and positions vis à vis Israeli colonisation might be played out. Since documented research into this vital area of playful artistic responses to Israel Palestine’s political reality is nonexistent, the thesis redresses this lack. Led by an enquiry which stems from and includes my own practice, the thesis is in dialogue with artists and theoreticians who relate not only to play but also to Israel Palestine’s political complexity. Positioned at the hitherto uncharted intersection of art, play and Israel Palestine, the research project proposes re-engagement with utopian ambitions and civic imaginings, without necessarily promising to satisfy them.