The current Shakespearean stage in Ukraine is a patchwork of styles, play choices and artistic intentions. In the past three decades, post-Soviet Ukrainian theatre has developed its approach to Shakespeare, which can be characterized as “glocal”. Some native stage practitioners emphasize their openness to up-tothe-minute tendencies, which enable the genuine integration of the Ukrainian theatre into the global Shakespearean context, whereas others mainly focus on the local issues employing Shakespeare’s plays as a source for travesties, burlesques, remakes, and retakes aimed at putting current social problems in the spotlight. The specifics of the modern technology-driven world and the crisis of anthropocentrism in the media and art forms cannot but reflect on the performing arts both globally and locally. In this respect, a posthuman theoretical perspective undermines the role of the human as the only creature capable of speaking the self. As wisely perceived by John D. Peters,
{"title":"Theatre Reviews","authors":"Anna Kowalcze-Pawlik","doi":"10.1515/mstap-2017-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/mstap-2017-0014","url":null,"abstract":"The current Shakespearean stage in Ukraine is a patchwork of styles, play choices and artistic intentions. In the past three decades, post-Soviet Ukrainian theatre has developed its approach to Shakespeare, which can be characterized as “glocal”. Some native stage practitioners emphasize their openness to up-tothe-minute tendencies, which enable the genuine integration of the Ukrainian theatre into the global Shakespearean context, whereas others mainly focus on the local issues employing Shakespeare’s plays as a source for travesties, burlesques, remakes, and retakes aimed at putting current social problems in the spotlight. The specifics of the modern technology-driven world and the crisis of anthropocentrism in the media and art forms cannot but reflect on the performing arts both globally and locally. In this respect, a posthuman theoretical perspective undermines the role of the human as the only creature capable of speaking the self. As wisely perceived by John D. Peters,","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"15 1","pages":"195 - 201"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49019963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-30DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.23.11
A. Czarnowus
King Lear exemplifies two cultures of feeling, the medieval and the early modern one. Even though the humoral theory lay at the heart of the medieval and the early modern understanding of emotions, there was a sudden change in the understanding of specific medieval emotions in Renaissance England, such as honour as an emotional disposition. Emotional expression also changed, since the late Middle Ages favoured vehement emotional expression, while in early modern England curtailment of any affective responses was advocated. Early modern England cut itself off from its medieval past in this manner and saw itself as “civilized” due to this restraint. Also some medieval courtly rituals were rejected. Expression of anger was no longer seen as natural and socially necessary. Shame started to be perceived as a private emotion and was not related to public shaming. The meaning of pride was discussed and love was separated from the medieval concept of charity. In contrast, in King Lear the question of embodiment of emotions is seen from a perspective similar to the medieval one. The article analyzes medievalism in terms of affections and studies the shift from the medieval ideas about them to the early modern ones.
{"title":"The Medievalism of Emotions in King Lear","authors":"A. Czarnowus","doi":"10.18778/2083-8530.23.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.23.11","url":null,"abstract":"King Lear exemplifies two cultures of feeling, the medieval and the early modern one. Even though the humoral theory lay at the heart of the medieval and the early modern understanding of emotions, there was a sudden change in the understanding of specific medieval emotions in Renaissance England, such as honour as an emotional disposition. Emotional expression also changed, since the late Middle Ages favoured vehement emotional expression, while in early modern England curtailment of any affective responses was advocated. Early modern England cut itself off from its medieval past in this manner and saw itself as “civilized” due to this restraint. Also some medieval courtly rituals were rejected. Expression of anger was no longer seen as natural and socially necessary. Shame started to be perceived as a private emotion and was not related to public shaming. The meaning of pride was discussed and love was separated from the medieval concept of charity. In contrast, in King Lear the question of embodiment of emotions is seen from a perspective similar to the medieval one. The article analyzes medievalism in terms of affections and studies the shift from the medieval ideas about them to the early modern ones.","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82058586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-30DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.23.08
Mahdi Javidshad
This article investigates Reza Servati’s Macbeth, an Iranian prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, to discuss the way the adaptor prunes the source text aiming at presenting his distinctive reading of Shakespeare’s play. First, this study is concerned with the way Servati minimalizes the source text and how the process of minimalization serves the adaptor’s preoccupation with the psychological complexities of the characters. Second, it is discussed how Servati’s changes to the source text takes the Renaissance inclination for individualism a step forward. Third, it is argued that the individualism in Servati’s adaptation is aimed at Oedipalization of the play, an attempt that shows the influence of Freudian psychoanalysis. Finally, this article investigates the way Servati’s adaptation can be considered as an expressionist reworking of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by making the individualization of the plot subservient to the expression of the typical course that everyman goes through.
{"title":"Individualization and Oedipalization in Reza Servati’s Adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: An Expressionist Reworking","authors":"Mahdi Javidshad","doi":"10.18778/2083-8530.23.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.23.08","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates Reza Servati’s Macbeth, an Iranian prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, to discuss the way the adaptor prunes the source text aiming at presenting his distinctive reading of Shakespeare’s play. First, this study is concerned with the way Servati minimalizes the source text and how the process of minimalization serves the adaptor’s preoccupation with the psychological complexities of the characters. Second, it is discussed how Servati’s changes to the source text takes the Renaissance inclination for individualism a step forward. Third, it is argued that the individualism in Servati’s adaptation is aimed at Oedipalization of the play, an attempt that shows the influence of Freudian psychoanalysis. Finally, this article investigates the way Servati’s adaptation can be considered as an expressionist reworking of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by making the individualization of the plot subservient to the expression of the typical course that everyman goes through.","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83199852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-30DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.23.15
José Saiz Molina
Quite sure I am that he had loved this title to honour him because my mentor and colleague, Prof. Dr. Vicente Forés López, was a scholar and an artist in equal proportion. A polymath of great versatility obsessed with taking pictures of birds and clouds, possibly, to confirm he was a rara avis in an increasingly globalized world. I can still remember watching this versatility when he was playing with two pieces of paper to explain what a hypertext, a link, a website, and a textual fractal were from the class platform. From my own experience, he seemed like a “Man of Utopia” leading a multimedia performance to seduce, at least, some sceptical spectators. An academic audience eager to learn 20 th Century English Narrative that, suddenly, was compelled to face with his challenging idea of a “pluperfect future.” A pun close to Sprechstimme—in the form of a homepage—that apart from summarizing the many research fields he mastered, it was his peculiar way of welcoming you to both his critical thinking and his multiple dimensions. All this may seem rather but trivial, however you must take into account that accessing to the “World Wide Web” and coding literary hypertexts in the mid 1990s was a privilege of a few and, fortunately for us, Dr. Vicente Forés was among those pioneering spirits. This global and collaborative perspective made him appreciate well in advance some doubts, uncertainties and possibilities about situations that “happened” before another time in the “future” (his own grandfather paradox) and, as a good translator and communicator, he promptly mirrored those www into his famous mmm or “Módulos Multi Media.” A recurrent thinking, the motto of his native team, an interactive literary
{"title":"In-MeMoriaM < Dr. Vicente Forés López >","authors":"José Saiz Molina","doi":"10.18778/2083-8530.23.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.23.15","url":null,"abstract":"Quite sure I am that he had loved this title to honour him because my mentor and colleague, Prof. Dr. Vicente Forés López, was a scholar and an artist in equal proportion. A polymath of great versatility obsessed with taking pictures of birds and clouds, possibly, to confirm he was a rara avis in an increasingly globalized world. I can still remember watching this versatility when he was playing with two pieces of paper to explain what a hypertext, a link, a website, and a textual fractal were from the class platform. From my own experience, he seemed like a “Man of Utopia” leading a multimedia performance to seduce, at least, some sceptical spectators. An academic audience eager to learn 20 th Century English Narrative that, suddenly, was compelled to face with his challenging idea of a “pluperfect future.” A pun close to Sprechstimme—in the form of a homepage—that apart from summarizing the many research fields he mastered, it was his peculiar way of welcoming you to both his critical thinking and his multiple dimensions. All this may seem rather but trivial, however you must take into account that accessing to the “World Wide Web” and coding literary hypertexts in the mid 1990s was a privilege of a few and, fortunately for us, Dr. Vicente Forés was among those pioneering spirits. This global and collaborative perspective made him appreciate well in advance some doubts, uncertainties and possibilities about situations that “happened” before another time in the “future” (his own grandfather paradox) and, as a good translator and communicator, he promptly mirrored those www into his famous mmm or “Módulos Multi Media.” A recurrent thinking, the motto of his native team, an interactive literary","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74683068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-30DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.22.01
Coen Heijes, Ayanna Thompson
When we were invited in 2019 by the editors of Multicultural Shakespeare to guest edit a special issue on a topic that would be of international significance, we did not have to think very hard or long, as the request aligned with one of our main research interests: racism, blackface and performance. Shakespearean performances have employed racial prosthetics since the Elizabethan period, but the intervening 400 years since Shakespeare’s lifetime have seen the symbolic, social, and performance meanings of blackface and its relation to xenophobia, institutional racism and populism change. Over the past years these topics have gained even more significance and worldwide attention, and 2020 accelerated interests in systemic racism and the histories and performances that foster and enable its perpetuation. The brutal murder of George Floyd in May 2020 inspired even more urgent calls for analyses of systemic, anti-black racism. As the mission of Multicultural Shakespeare (formerly Shakespeare Worldwide) aims to broaden scholarly perspectives beyond an Anglophone approach, we sent out a call for papers inviting scholars to analyse specific uses of blackface in both local and global contexts across the world. We were particularly interested in essays that would explore specific political, social, and cultural issues regarding institutional racism and their relations to blackface traditions both inside and outside the theatre. Interest in this topic has increased over the past decades and is currently accelerating and deepening, with recent and forthcoming publications on the subject not only moving beyond the Anglophone context but also aiming to contextualise the interactions between institutional racism, blackface, performance and the socio-political context (Heijes, 2020; Valls-Russell and Sokolova, 2021; Thompson, 2021a, Thompson, 2021b). When we launched our call for papers for this special issue of Multicultural Shakespeare, we had no idea that so many authors would submit their papers. The international interest in blackface revealed just how pervasive
2019年，当《多元文化莎士比亚》的编辑邀请我们客座编辑一期关于一个具有国际意义的主题的特刊时，我们没有想太多，因为这一要求与我们的主要研究兴趣之一一致:种族主义、黑脸和表演。自伊丽莎白时代以来，莎士比亚的表演一直使用种族假肢，但在莎士比亚有生之年的400年里，黑脸的象征意义、社会意义和表演意义以及它与仇外心理、制度性种族主义和民粹主义的关系发生了变化。在过去的几年里，这些话题得到了更大的重视和全世界的关注，2020年加速了对系统性种族主义以及助长和使其永存的历史和表现的兴趣。2020年5月，乔治·弗洛伊德(George Floyd)被残忍谋杀，引发了对系统性反黑人种族主义进行分析的更迫切呼吁。多元文化莎士比亚(以前的莎士比亚世界)的使命是拓宽学术视野，超越以英语为母语的方法，我们发出了一份论文征集，邀请学者分析黑脸在世界各地的地方和全球背景下的具体用法。我们特别感兴趣的是那些探讨具体的政治、社会和文化问题的文章，这些问题涉及制度性种族主义及其与剧院内外黑脸传统的关系。在过去的几十年里，人们对这一主题的兴趣有所增加，目前正在加速和深化，最近和即将发表的关于这一主题的出版物不仅超越了英语国家的背景，而且还旨在将制度性种族主义、黑脸、表演和社会政治背景之间的相互作用置于背景中(Heijes, 2020;Valls-Russell and Sokolova, 2021;Thompson, 2021a, Thompson, 2021b)。当我们开始为这期《多元文化的莎士比亚》特刊征集论文时，我们没有想到会有这么多作者提交论文。国际上对黑脸的兴趣显示出它是多么普遍
{"title":"Introduction: Shakespeare, Blackface and Performance. A Global Perspective","authors":"Coen Heijes, Ayanna Thompson","doi":"10.18778/2083-8530.22.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.22.01","url":null,"abstract":"When we were invited in 2019 by the editors of Multicultural Shakespeare to guest edit a special issue on a topic that would be of international significance, we did not have to think very hard or long, as the request aligned with one of our main research interests: racism, blackface and performance. Shakespearean performances have employed racial prosthetics since the Elizabethan period, but the intervening 400 years since Shakespeare’s lifetime have seen the symbolic, social, and performance meanings of blackface and its relation to xenophobia, institutional racism and populism change. Over the past years these topics have gained even more significance and worldwide attention, and 2020 accelerated interests in systemic racism and the histories and performances that foster and enable its perpetuation. The brutal murder of George Floyd in May 2020 inspired even more urgent calls for analyses of systemic, anti-black racism. As the mission of Multicultural Shakespeare (formerly Shakespeare Worldwide) aims to broaden scholarly perspectives beyond an Anglophone approach, we sent out a call for papers inviting scholars to analyse specific uses of blackface in both local and global contexts across the world. We were particularly interested in essays that would explore specific political, social, and cultural issues regarding institutional racism and their relations to blackface traditions both inside and outside the theatre. Interest in this topic has increased over the past decades and is currently accelerating and deepening, with recent and forthcoming publications on the subject not only moving beyond the Anglophone context but also aiming to contextualise the interactions between institutional racism, blackface, performance and the socio-political context (Heijes, 2020; Valls-Russell and Sokolova, 2021; Thompson, 2021a, Thompson, 2021b). When we launched our call for papers for this special issue of Multicultural Shakespeare, we had no idea that so many authors would submit their papers. The international interest in blackface revealed just how pervasive","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89943436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-30DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.22.07
Katherine Hennessey
This article opens with some brief observations on the phenomenon of Arab blackface—that is, of Arab actors “blacking up” to impersonate black Arab or African characters—from classic cinematic portrayals of the warrior-poet Antara Ibn Shaddad to more recent deployments of blackface in the Arab entertainment industry. It then explores the complex nexus of race, gender, citizenship and social status in the Arabian Gulf as context for a critical reflection on the author’s experience of reading and discussing Othello with students at the American University of Kuwait—discussions which took place in the fall of 2019, in the midst of a wave of controversies sparked by instances of Arab blackface on television and in social media.
这篇文章以对阿拉伯黑脸现象的一些简短观察开始——即阿拉伯演员“涂黑”以模仿阿拉伯或非洲黑人角色——从经典电影中对战士诗人Antara Ibn Shaddad的刻画到最近阿拉伯娱乐圈中对黑脸的运用。然后，它探讨了阿拉伯海湾地区种族、性别、公民身份和社会地位之间的复杂联系，作为作者在科威特美国大学阅读和与学生讨论《奥赛罗》的经历的批判性反思——讨论发生在2019年秋天，当时电视和社交媒体上的阿拉伯黑脸事件引发了一波争议。
{"title":"Interpreting Othello in the Arabian Gulf: Shakespeare in a Time of Blackface Controversies","authors":"Katherine Hennessey","doi":"10.18778/2083-8530.22.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.22.07","url":null,"abstract":"This article opens with some brief observations on the phenomenon of Arab blackface—that is, of Arab actors “blacking up” to impersonate black Arab or African characters—from classic cinematic portrayals of the warrior-poet Antara Ibn Shaddad to more recent deployments of blackface in the Arab entertainment industry. It then explores the complex nexus of race, gender, citizenship and social status in the Arabian Gulf as context for a critical reflection on the author’s experience of reading and discussing Othello with students at the American University of Kuwait—discussions which took place in the fall of 2019, in the midst of a wave of controversies sparked by instances of Arab blackface on television and in social media.","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81902948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-30DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.22.08
Marinela Golemi
This essay examines the racialized rhetoric in Fan Noli’s 1916 Othello translation and the racialized performance techniques employed in A.J. Ricko’s 1953 National Theatre of Albania production. Hoping to combat racial discrimination in Albania, Noli’s translation of Othello renders the Moor an exceptional Turk whose alienation in Venice was designed to mirror the Albanophobic experiences of Albanian immigrants. Moreover, the Albanian Othello can serve as a platform for addressing ethno-racial tensions between Albanians and Turks, northern and southern Albanians, and Albanians of color and white Albanians. Both Noli and Ricko believed there was an anti-racist power inherent within Shakespeare’s play. In the end, however, the race-based rhetoric in the Albanian language, the use of blackface make-up in performance, and the logic and rhetoric of Shakespeare’s play itself challenged these lofty goals for race-healing.
{"title":"Othello in the Balkans: Performing Race Rhetoric on the Albanian Stage","authors":"Marinela Golemi","doi":"10.18778/2083-8530.22.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.22.08","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines the racialized rhetoric in Fan Noli’s 1916 Othello translation and the racialized performance techniques employed in A.J. Ricko’s 1953 National Theatre of Albania production. Hoping to combat racial discrimination in Albania, Noli’s translation of Othello renders the Moor an exceptional Turk whose alienation in Venice was designed to mirror the Albanophobic experiences of Albanian immigrants. Moreover, the Albanian Othello can serve as a platform for addressing ethno-racial tensions between Albanians and Turks, northern and southern Albanians, and Albanians of color and white Albanians. Both Noli and Ricko believed there was an anti-racist power inherent within Shakespeare’s play. In the end, however, the race-based rhetoric in the Albanian language, the use of blackface make-up in performance, and the logic and rhetoric of Shakespeare’s play itself challenged these lofty goals for race-healing.","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"4 11","pages":"125-138"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138513770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-30DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.22.09
Paula Baldwin Lind
This article reviews part of the stage history of Shakespeare’s Othello in Chile and, in particular, it focuses on two performances of the play: the first, in 1818, and the last one in 2012-2020. By comparing both productions, I aim to establish the exact date and theatrical context of the first Chilean staging of the Shakespearean tragedy using historical sources and English travellers’ records, as well as to explore how the representation of a Moor and of blackness onstage evolved both in its visual dimension — the choice of costumes and the use of blackface—, and in its racial connotations alongside deep social changes. During the nineteenth century Othello became one of the most popular plays in Chile, being performed eleven times in the period of 31 years, a success that also occurred in Spain between 1802 and 1833. The early development of Chilean theatre was very much influenced not only by the ideas of the Spaniards who arrived in the country, but also by the available Spanish translations of Shakespeare; therefore, I argue that the first performances of Othello as Other — different in origin and in skin colour — were characterised by an imitative style, since actors repeated onstage the biased image of Moors that Spaniards had brought to Chile. While the assessment of Othello and race is not new, this article contrasts in its scope, as I do not discuss the protagonist’s actual origin, but how the changes in Chilean social and cultural contexts can reshape and reconfigure the performance of blackness and turn it into a meaningful translation of the Shakespearean Moor that activates audiences’ awareness of racism and fears of miscegenation.
{"title":"“Far more fair than black”: Othellos on the Chilean Stage","authors":"Paula Baldwin Lind","doi":"10.18778/2083-8530.22.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.22.09","url":null,"abstract":"This article reviews part of the stage history of Shakespeare’s Othello in Chile and, in particular, it focuses on two performances of the play: the first, in 1818, and the last one in 2012-2020. By comparing both productions, I aim to establish the exact date and theatrical context of the first Chilean staging of the Shakespearean tragedy using historical sources and English travellers’ records, as well as to explore how the representation of a Moor and of blackness onstage evolved both in its visual dimension — the choice of costumes and the use of blackface—, and in its racial connotations alongside deep social changes. During the nineteenth century Othello became one of the most popular plays in Chile, being performed eleven times in the period of 31 years, a success that also occurred in Spain between 1802 and 1833. The early development of Chilean theatre was very much influenced not only by the ideas of the Spaniards who arrived in the country, but also by the available Spanish translations of Shakespeare; therefore, I argue that the first performances of Othello as Other — different in origin and in skin colour — were characterised by an imitative style, since actors repeated onstage the biased image of Moors that Spaniards had brought to Chile. While the assessment of Othello and race is not new, this article contrasts in its scope, as I do not discuss the protagonist’s actual origin, but how the changes in Chilean social and cultural contexts can reshape and reconfigure the performance of blackness and turn it into a meaningful translation of the Shakespearean Moor that activates audiences’ awareness of racism and fears of miscegenation.","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73238536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.21.06
Andoni Cossio, M. Simonson
This paper analyses from an ecocritical standpoint the role of trees, woods and forests and their symbolism in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II and The Tempest. The analysis begins with an outline of the representation of trees on stage to continue with a ‘close reading’ of the mentioned plays, clearly distinguishing individual trees from woods and forests. Individual types of trees may represent death, sadness, sorcery and premonitions, or serve as meeting places, while forests and woods are frequently portrayed as settings which create an atmosphere of confusion, false appearances, danger and magic. This reflects a long-standing historical connection between trees and forests and the supernatural in literature and culture. However, while individual trees largely reflect traditional symbology, conventional interpretations are often subverted in Shakespeare’s treatment of forests and woods. From all this we may infer that Shakespeare was not only familiar with the traditions associated to individual tree species and forests in general, but also that he made conscious and active use of these in order to enhance the meaning of an action, reinforce character traits, further the plot and create a specific atmosphere. More subtly, the collective arboreal environments can also be interpreted as spaces in which superstitions and older societal models are questioned in favour of a more rational and reasonable understanding of the world.
{"title":"Arboreal Tradition and Subversion: An Ecocritical Reading of Shakespeare’s Portrayal of Trees, Woods and Forests","authors":"Andoni Cossio, M. Simonson","doi":"10.18778/2083-8530.21.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.21.06","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyses from an ecocritical standpoint the role of trees, woods and forests and their symbolism in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II and The Tempest. The analysis begins with an outline of the representation of trees on stage to continue with a ‘close reading’ of the mentioned plays, clearly distinguishing individual trees from woods and forests. Individual types of trees may represent death, sadness, sorcery and premonitions, or serve as meeting places, while forests and woods are frequently portrayed as settings which create an atmosphere of confusion, false appearances, danger and magic. This reflects a long-standing historical connection between trees and forests and the supernatural in literature and culture. However, while individual trees largely reflect traditional symbology, conventional interpretations are often subverted in Shakespeare’s treatment of forests and woods. From all this we may infer that Shakespeare was not only familiar with the traditions associated to individual tree species and forests in general, but also that he made conscious and active use of these in order to enhance the meaning of an action, reinforce character traits, further the plot and create a specific atmosphere. More subtly, the collective arboreal environments can also be interpreted as spaces in which superstitions and older societal models are questioned in favour of a more rational and reasonable understanding of the world.","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91397200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.18778/2083-8530.21.09
Sabina Laskowska-Hinz
The article discusses the intertextual relationship between the poster by Marian Nowiński, Otello Desdemona, and the content of Shakespeare’s play, while presenting the most important elements of the plot that are decisive for the portrayal of Desdemona. It also discusses the tradition of female nudes in Western art. This allows to usher out these characteristic features of elements of Desdemona that fashion her into Venus Caelestis and Venus Naturalis. The article focuses on the ambivalence of Nowiński’s poster and discusses the significance of the paintings by Titian, Giorgione, and Fuseli in designing the figure of Desdemona as a goddess.
{"title":"Designing Goddesses: Shakespeare’s \"Othello\" and Marian Nowiński’s \"Otello Desdemona\"","authors":"Sabina Laskowska-Hinz","doi":"10.18778/2083-8530.21.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.21.09","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses the intertextual relationship between the poster by Marian Nowiński, Otello Desdemona, and the content of Shakespeare’s play, while presenting the most important elements of the plot that are decisive for the portrayal of Desdemona. It also discusses the tradition of female nudes in Western art. This allows to usher out these characteristic features of elements of Desdemona that fashion her into Venus Caelestis and Venus Naturalis. The article focuses on the ambivalence of Nowiński’s poster and discusses the significance of the paintings by Titian, Giorgione, and Fuseli in designing the figure of Desdemona as a goddess.","PeriodicalId":40600,"journal":{"name":"Multicultural Shakespeare-Translation Appropriation and Performance","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79787184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：