Hostname: page-component-76dd75c94c-lpd2x Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T09:32:26.427Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reinvention of Shakespeare in Traditional Asian Theatrical Forms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Min Tian
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Especially during the later decades of the twentieth century, Shakespeare's plays have been adapted for production in many of the major Asian traditional theatrical forms – prompting some western critics to suggest that such forms, with their long but largely non-logocentric traditions, can come closer to the recovery or recreation of the theatrical conditions and performance styles of Shakespeare's times than can academically derived experiments based on scantily documented research. Whether in full conformity with traditional Asian styles, or by stirring ingredients into a synthetic mix, Min Tian denies that a ‘true’ recreation is possible – but suggests that such productions can, paradoxically, help us to ‘reinvent’ Shakespeare in fuller accord with our own times, notably by exploiting the potential of stylized gesture and movement, and the integration of music and dance, called for by proponents of a modernistic ‘total’ theatre after Artaud. In considering a wide range of Shakespearean productions and adaptations from varying Asian traditions, Min Tian suggests that the fashionably derided ‘universality’ of Shakespeare may still tell an intercultural truth that transcends stylistic and chronological distinctions. Min Tian holds a doctorate from the China Central Academy of Drama, where he has been an associate professor since 1992. The author of many articles on Shakespeare, modern drama, and intercultural theatre, he is now a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 14 , Issue 55 , August 1998 , pp. 274 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes and References

1. Styan, J. L., The Shakespeare Revolution: Criticism and Performance in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 5Google Scholar.

2. Pound, Ezra and Fenollosa, Ernest, The Classical Noh Theatre of Japan (New York: New Directions, 1959), p. 60Google Scholar.

3. Ibid., p. 29, fn.

4. Pronko, Leonard C., Theatre East and West: Perspectives toward a Total Theatre (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), p. 161Google Scholar. Pronko's assertion remains valid: as Alan Dessen noted most recently, probably 90 per cent or more of the evidence has been eroded so that ‘what was too obvious to need recording then is murky or eclipsed today’. See Dessen, Alan C., ‘Recovering Elizabethan Staging: a Reconsideration of the Evidence’, in Textual and Theatrical Shakespeare: Questions of Evidence, ed. Pechter, Edward (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996), p. 63Google Scholar.

5. Artaud, Antonin, ‘Letters on Language’, in The Theatre and Its Double, trans. Richards, Mary Caroline (New York: Grove Press, 1958), p. 108Google Scholar.

6. Brockbank, Philip, ‘Shakespeare Renaissance in China’, Shakespeare Quarterly, XXXIX, No. 2 (1988), p. 195CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Brown, John Russell, ‘Jatra Theatre and Elizabethan Dramaturgy’, New Theatre Quarterly, X, No. 40 (11 1994), p. 338Google Scholar.

8. Pronko, Leonard C., ‘Approaching Shakespeare through Kabuki’, Shakespeare East and West, ed. Fujita, Minoru and Pronko, Leonard (New York: St Martin's Press, 1996), p. 24Google Scholar.

9. Kott, Jan, The Theatre of Essence (Evanston: North-western University Press, 1984), p. 127–8Google Scholar.

10. Quoted in Kiernander, Adrian, Ariane Mnouchkine and the Theatre du Soleil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 106Google Scholar.

11. Quoted in Kiernander, Ibid., p. 109.

12. Mnouchkine, Ariane, ‘The Theatre is Oriental’, in The Intercultural Performance Reader, ed. Pavis, Patrice (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 95Google Scholar.

13. Harbage, Alfred, Theatre for Shakespeare (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1955), p. 92–118Google Scholar.

14. Dessen, Alan C., Recovering Shakespeare's Theatrical Vocabulary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 127–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. Antonin Artaud, ‘Oriental and Occidental Theatre’, ‘No More Masterpieces’, and ‘Letters on Language: First Letter’, in Theatre and Its Double, op. cit.

16. See Nouryeh, Andrea J., ‘Shakespeare and the Japanese Stage’, in Foreign Shakespeare, ed. Kennedy, Dennis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 259Google Scholar.

17. Quoted in Fleck, Agnes, ‘A Japanese Much Ado’, Shakespeare Quarterly, XXXII, No. 3 (Autumn 1981), p. 366Google Scholar.

18. Quoted in Fleck, Agnes, ‘Terence Knapp's Shakespearean Production in Tokyo’, Shakespeare Translation, No. 10 (Tokyo, 1984), p. 60Google Scholar.

19. Ibid., p. 60.

20. See Pronko, ‘Approaching Shakespeare through Kabuki’, p. 34–8; Ronnie Mulryne, ‘From Text to Foreign Stage: Yukio Ninagawa's Cultural Translation of Macbeth’, in Shakespeare from Text to Stage, ed. Kennan, Patricia and Tempera, Mariangela (Bologna: Clueb, 1992), p. 131–43Google Scholar.

21. Billington, Michael, The Guardian, 19 09 1987Google Scholar, reprinted in London Theatre Record, VII, 9–23 September 1987, p. 1,200.

22. Taylor, Paul. The Independent, 19 09 1987, reprinted in London Theatre Record, op. cit., p. 1,201Google Scholar.

23. Christopher Andraea, ‘A Japanese Macbeth in Scotland’, quoted in Pronko, ‘Approaching Shakespeare through Kabuki’, p. 39.

24. Ibid., p. 36–7.

25. Kowsar, Mohammad, ‘The Tale of Lear’, Theatre Journal XLI, No. 1 (03 1989), p. 109Google Scholar.

26. Kim, Yun-Cheol, ‘The First BeSeTo Theatre Festival’, Theatre Journal, XLVII, No. 3 (10 1995), p. 417Google Scholar.

27. See Carruthers, Ian, ‘What Actors and Directors Do to “Legitimate” Shakespeare: Suzuki's Chronicle of Macbeth and Ellen Lauren's Lady Macbeth’, in Shakespeare's Books: Contemporary Cultural Politics and the Persistence of Empire, ed. Mead, Philip and Campbell, Marion (Perkville: Department of English, University of Melbourne, 1993), p. 180Google Scholar.

28. See Carruthers, Ibid., p. 179–80.

29. Pronko, Leonard, ‘The Chronicle Macbeth’, Theatre Journal, XL, No. 1 (03 1993), p. 110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. Briggs, John R., Shogun Macbeth (New York: Samuel French, 1988), p. 8–9Google Scholar.

31. Ibid., p. 7.

32. Mnouchkine, ‘The Theatre is Oriental’, p. 95.

33. For an analysis of Mnouchkine's production of Richard II, see Kiernander, op. cit. p. 110–15.

34. Pronko, ‘Approaching Shakespeare through Kabuki’, p. 31.

35. Mnouchkine, ‘The Theatre is Oriental’, p. 96.

36. Quoted in Dennis Kennedy, ‘Afterword: Shakespearean Orientalism’, in Foreign Shakespeare, op. cit., p. 295.

37. Mnouchkine, ‘The Theatre is Oriental’, p. 96.

38. Sullivan, Dan, ‘A Richard II That Rewards Effort’, Los Angeles Times, 15 06 1984, Part VI, p. 4Google Scholar.

39. Sisson, C. J., Shakespeare in India: Popular Adaptations on the Bombay Stage (London: Oxford University Press, 1926), p. 7Google Scholar.

40. Ibid., p. 26.

41. Bharucha, Rustom, Rehearsals of Revolution: the Political Theatre of Bengal (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), p. 62–3Google Scholar.

42. Quoted in Zarrilli, Phillip B., ‘For Whom Is the King a King? Issues of Interculrural Production, Perception, and Reception in a Kathakali King Lear’, in Critical Theory and Performance, ed. Reinelt, Janelle G. and Roach, Joseph R. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), p. 19Google Scholar.

43. Awasthi, Suresh, ‘The Intercultural Experience and the Kathakali King Lear’, New Theatre Quarterly, IX, No. 34 (05 1993), p. 172–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44. Singh, Jyotsna, Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues: ‘Discoveries’ of India in the Language of Colonialism (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 146Google Scholar.

45. Awasthi, ‘The Interculrural Experience’, p. 178.

46. Quoted in Zarrilli, op. cit., p. 27.

47. Billington, Michael, ‘Empty Gestures of a Frustrating Lear’, The Guardian, 17 08 1990, p. 28Google Scholar.

48. Stevenson, Randall, ‘Beat of a Different Drum’, The Independent, 18 08 1990Google Scholar.

49. Weiss, Alfred, ‘The Edinburgh International Festival 1990’, Shakespeare Quarterly, XLII (Winter 1991), p. 464Google Scholar.

50. Quoted in Donohue, Peter Morgan, ‘Shozo Sato and the Interculturation of Kabuki and Western Theatre’, unpublished dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1992, p. 254Google Scholar.

51. Sato, Shozo, ‘Director's Notes’, in Program for Iago's Plot (Urbana: University of Illinois KCPA, 1997), p. 8Google Scholar.

52. See Syse, Glenna, ‘Macbeth Done Kabuki Style’, Chicago Sun-Times, 5 10 1981, p. 37Google Scholar; Christiansen, Richard, ‘Bard the Star in Kabuki Othello’, Chicago Tribune, 20 11 1986, Sec. 2, p. 11Google Scholar; Bevington, David, ‘Kabuki Othello at the Wisdom Bridge Theatre, Chicago’, Shakespeare Quarterly, XXXVIII, No. 2 (Summer 1987), p. 211–14Google Scholar.

53. Bevington, op. cit., p. 211.

54. Sato, op. cit., p. 7.

55. Donohue, op. cit., p. 208.

56. Munakata, Kuniyoshi, Hamlet in Noh Style: Collected Versions, 1982–1990 (Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1991), p. viiGoogle Scholar; Kahan, Jeffrey, ‘Noh Shakespeare: an Interview with Kuniyoshi Munakata’, Shakespeare Bulletin, XIV, No. 1 (Winter 1996), p. 27Google Scholar.

57. Kahan, op. cit., p. 27.

58. Ibid., p. 28.

59. Munakata, op. cit., p. 73.

60. Ibid., p. 150.

61. Donald Richie, ‘Hamlet Seen as Noh Drama’, in Hamlet in Noh Style, p. 154.

62. Munakata and John Fraser, ‘John Fraser Talks about Noh Hamlet’, in Hamlet in Noh Style, p. 151.

63. Ibid., p. 152.

64. Hu Weimin, in Hu Weimin, Li Jiayao, Wang Fumin, and Jiang Weiguo, ‘Zhong Xi Wenhua Zai Xiju Wutai Shang de Yuhe: Guanyu Zhongguo Xiqu yu Shashibiya de Duihua’ (‘The Meeeting of Chinese and Western Cultures on Stage: Dialogues on Traditional Chinese Theatre and Shakespeare’), Xiju Yishu (Theatre Arts), p. 39–40.

65. Li Jiayao, in Hu, Li, Wang, and Jiang, Ibid., p. 42.

66. Jiang Weiguo, in Hu, Li, Wang, and Jiang, Ibid., p. 47.

67. Gusun, Lu, ‘Shashibiya Zhongguo Hua de Sikao’ (‘Reflections on the Sinicization of Shakespeare’), Shanghai Yishujia (Shanghai Artists), No. 1 (1987), p. 47Google Scholar.

68. Li Jiayao, op. cit., p. 42.

69. King, Francis, Sunday Telegraph, 30 08 1987Google Scholar , reprinted in London Theatre Record, 13–26 August 1987, Edinburgh International Festival Supplement 1987, p. 33 (my italics).

70. Scott, Robert Dawson, Glasgoiv Herald, 26 08 1987Google Scholar, reprinted in London Theatre Record, op. cit., p. 32.

71. Renton, Alex, The Independent, 28 08 1987, reprinted in London Theatre Record, op. cit., p. 34Google Scholar.

72. Hall, Fernau, Daily Telegraph, 27 08 1987, reprinted in London Theatre Record, op. cit., p. 33Google Scholar.

73. For a description of this production, see Stanley, Audrey, ‘The 1994 Shanghai International Shakespeare Festival’, Shakespeare Quarterly, XLVII, No. 1 (Spring 1996), p. 73–4Google Scholar. Stanley thought that the production was ‘old-fashioned’ and that its ‘romantic approach’ was ‘cliché-ridden’, but also observed that ‘the combination of well-loved and well-known music with beautifully performed dance and drama worked its magic’.

74. Fuliang, Sun, ‘Jiusi Shanghai Guoji Shashibiya Xiju Jie Shuping’ (‘Comments on the 1994 Shanghai International Shakespeare Festival’), Xiju Yishu (Theatre Arts), No. 4 (1994), p. 6Google Scholar.

75. See Shujun, Cao, ‘Li-er Wang Zai Jingju Wutai Shang: Jingju Qi Wang Meng Shang Xi’ (‘King Lear on the Jingju Stage: an Appreciation of The Dream of Emperor Qi’) Wen Hui Bao, 17 11 1995Google Scholar.