Extramural Shakespeare

Reproducing Shakespeare, 2020

Reproducing Shakespeare marks the turn in adaptation studies toward recontextualization, reformatting, and media convergence. It builds on two decades of growing interest in the "afterlife" of Shakespeare, showcasing some of the best new work of this kind currently being produced. The series addresses the repurposing of Shakespeare in different technical, cultural, and performance formats, emphasizing the uses and effects of Shakespearean texts in both national and global networks of reference and communication. Studies in this series pursue a deeper understanding of how and why cultures recycle their classic works, and of the media involved in negotiating these transactions.

The present paper examines the osmotic presence of Shakespeare in English contemporary theatre. The Shakespeare's position in the centre of the Western canon is irrevocable, yet the influence operates rather as a cultural residue: a ghost or echo. The aim of this paper is to highlight the notion of ghosting, a term coined by Marvin Carlson, as the process of using memory (both individual and cultural) to understand and interpret the new. Thus Shakespeare's presence in contemporary culture need not be seen as what Colin Teevan calls the theatrical equivalent of muesli; on the contrary, the theatre of Shakespeare, according to Hans Lehmann, resembles postdramatic theatre. Thereby this paper suggests a link between Shakespeare and Forced Entertainment, a leading British experimental theatre, and attempts to illustrate this by revisiting the company's workshop called Five Day Lear, the only direct fabrication of Shakespeare in Forced Entertainment's oeuvre, a marginal video Mark Does Lear made by Tim Etchells, the company's artistic director; additionally the project highlights the ghosts of Shakespeare's presence in Spectacular and The Thrill of it All – two Forced Entertainment's recent performances. The paper further accentuates a glocal rather than global reading of Shakespeare so as to justify current needs for spin-off translations of Shakespeare into English (such as the NoFearShakespeare project).

Journal of Language and Communication, 2024

This article examines the multifaceted and evolving presence of Shakespeare's works on the global stage, and aims to identify and review promising new avenues of performance research. It explores how Shakespeare's plays are adapted to address contemporary political and social issues in Greece, analyzes how Malaysian productions blend Shakespearean texts with local cultural traditions and performance styles, and examines how rehearsal studies and practice-based research methods contribute to a deeper understanding of Shakespearean performance at the Folger Theatre (USA). The article challenges traditional notions of "authenticity" in Shakespeare studies, advocating for a more nuanced approach that embraces diversity and celebrates the dynamic interplay between Shakespearean texts and their diverse cultural contexts. Keywords: Shakespeare, global Shakespeare, performance studies, cultural adaptation, political theater, cultural hybridity, practice-based research, rehearsal studies, international theater, intercultural exchange, Shakespearean performance, 21st-century Shakespeare.

https://shakespeare.revues.org/3852 Much critical ink has been spilled in defining and establishing the terms of discussion: appropriation, adaptation, off-shoot, recontextualization, riff, reworking, and so on have been used interchangeably or under erasure. This paper both examines the utility of such nice distinctions, and critiques existing taxonomies. It takes as its starting point the premise that scholars must carefully articulate our reasons for deploying particular terms, so that Shakespearean thinkers, readers, writers, and performers can develop a shared, even if contested, discourse. Ultimately, however, it suggests a new rubric or heading under which to consider Shakespearean appropriations: as transformations. In a US context, to evoke either "adaptation" or "appropriation" is to evoke copyright law. I suggest that Shakespearean appropriations potentially metamorphose or mutate culture, literary form, creativity, pedagogy, and, most provocatively, the market economy, in part because Shakespearean texts antedate current US copyright law and thus any use we make of them is already “transformative.” In particular, Shakespearean appropriations transform creative production and intervene in contemporary commodity culture or the hypermediatized, monetized creative self. Shakespearean transformations in both legacy and emerging media also offer models for the new hybrid creative economies predicted ten years ago by Lawrence Lessig in part because of Shakespeare's "spreadability" (Jenkins', Ford, and Green's term for content that can be remixed, shared, grabbed and so on) and its "stickiness" (a marketing term popularized by Grant Leboff meaning the power to draw repeat users who forge a lasting connection with the source material).

Shakespeare Bulletin, 2017

2017

Shakespeare is a local force to be reckoned with in the global marketplace and in digital and analog archives of collective memory. With the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth in 2014 and quatercentenary in 2016, there are several high-profile instances of global Shakespeare being tapped for its market value. The exchange value of Shakespeare is reflected in uses of Shakespearean themes and artifacts in appropriations, cultural diplomacy, and venues where nation states project soft power. There are no world markets without the proliferation of archives built on collective cultural memory. Conversely, there would be no archives without the cultural marketplace to validate that Shakespearean artifacts are archive-worthy in the first place. Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation 6.1 (2017); ISSN 1554-6985

Critical Survey, 2013

This special issue of Critical Survey borrows its headline from the title of the 2016 World Shakespeare Congress, which is 'Creating and Recreating Shakespeare'. Though it may seem perverse-Shakespeare being synonymous with creativity itself-to speak of 'creating' that which is already so manifestly and abundantly created, Shakespeare criticism and scholarship is tending increasingly towards the view that every act of scholarly reproduction, critical interpretation, theatrical performance, stage and screen adaptation, or fictional appropriation produces a new and hitherto unconceived Shakespeare. This volume presents discursive evidence to support this hypothesis in relation to the fields of transcultural reproduction, screen adaptation, theatrical improvisation and fictional rewriting. Mahmoud Al-Shetawi explores the substantial corpus of Shakespeare in Arabic translation and adaptation. As Al-Shetawi demonstrates, 'Arab Shakespeare' scarcely existed in the West as a field of inquiry until the first decade of this century, and was excluded or ignored in the study of postcolonial literature. In 1996 the World Shakespeare Congress addressed 'postcolonial Shakespeare' without glancing at the history of Shakespeare in the Arabic world. By contrast in 2006 the WSC opened with a panel on Arab Shakespeare, and since then scholarship and criticism in this area have grown exponentially. This journal gave significant assistance to that process by publishing the first collection of critical essays on 'Arab Shakespeare', edited by Margaret Litvin, in 2007 (Critical Survey 19, 3). Litvin followed this initiative in 2011 with the publication of her book Hamlet's Arab Journey

2010

This study considers the ways in which Shakespeare’ s plays have been adapted in crosscultural contexts from the nineteenth century to th e present, specifically in Europe and India, through the media of opera and film. I bring into d ialogue reception theory, adaptation studies, Shakespeare scholarship, musicology, film studies, and postcolonial theory in order to examine the mechanisms of Shakespeare’s receptio n in these two culturally diverse regions of the globe, and argue that there are sign ifica t parallels between European and Indian adaptations of Shakespeare. Despite the diff rent cultural and political histories of the two regions, Shakespeare’s plays reached out to loc al audiences only when they were modified in order to make them relevant to the cult ural and ideological concerns of the new audiences that were far removed from Shakespeare’s own. Moving away from understanding Shakespeare’s reception either in terms of the dram atist’s “universal appeal” or in terms of...

What are digital video's functions? How can those functions be best facilitated in the field of Shakespeare studies when the disciplinary boundary between text and performance is blurred by virtual performative texts? This article surveys the state of global Shakespeare and analyses the implications of digital video in scholarly and pedagogic practice.

Shakespeare and Cultural Appropriation, 2023

Cultural appropriation can be an exploitative act but need not be; it all depends on what users do with Shakespeare. Due to the unequal status of the parties engaged in appropriative exchange, some appropriations deploy Shakespeare to protect conventional power structures. Appropriations are rarely negotiated on a level playing field, especially when it comes to Shakespeare, because of the canon’s long history of association with cultural elites and prestige. Cultural appropriation can also have subversive and counter-hegemonic effects. Marginalized agents have the power to expose and correct power imbalances. In other words, we addresses a wide range of intercultural and global appropriations of Shakespeare. Our study also complicates any simple definition of how cultural appropriation works and what ethical effects it might produce. ::: ISBN 9781032303086