SME · Shakespeare, the Middle East, and Europe

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Project objective

Shakespeare, through the processes of globalisation, is the only European canonical author who is widely known in the Arab world. He is read in classrooms, occasionally produced on stage, quoted in the press, and alluded to in political speeches. Arab diaspora writers and playwrights have also adapted Shakespeare for performance within Europe and the Arab world. In so doing they confront and explore cultural relationships between East and West in both personal and political contexts. Shakespeare thus provides a common reference point and code of discourse.This study attempts to document and understand the various appropriations of Shakespeare circulating within European diaspora Arab communities and assess their potential for enhancing community relations. It focuses in particular on Suleyman Al-Bayan's groundbreaking reworking of Shakespeare's Hamlet, The Al-Hamlet Summit, which places the work within the context of an unstable Middle Eastern dictatorship wracked by civil war and facing external invasion. Al-Bassan's play, conceived and developed within Europe, proved hugely popular, and controversial, with audiences in Kuwait City, Cairo, London, and Edinburgh. This study examines Al-Bassan's work, and those of other diaspora theatrical practitioners, from the perspectives of both analytic criticism and social analysis. It asks both what such appropriations mean - and whether such appropriations operate to promote social cohesion through the establishment of shared modes of discourse and common cultural understanding.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON · LONDONCoordinatorUnited Kingdom

Links

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