Publication details

Politics, Shakespeare, East-Central Europe: Theatrical Border Crossings

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Authors

ALMÁSI Zsolt ŠKROBÁNKOVÁ Klára NICOLAESCU Mădălina VYROUBALOVÁ Ema ZAHARIA Oana-Alis

Year of publication 2023
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Web https://www.czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/szekspir/article/view/23089
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.28.03
Keywords race; racism; political theater; William Shakespeare; Jan Kott; adaptation; cultural mobility; cultural transmission; microhistories; translation
Description This essay discusses how productions of Shakespeare’s plays that transcend various geographical, national, and linguistic boundaries have influenced the theatrical-political discourse in East-Central Europe in the twenty-first century. It focuses primarily on the work of four internationally-established directors: Andrei Şerban (Romania), Jan Klata (Poland), David Jařab (Czech Republic), and Matei Vi?niec (Romania), whose works have facilitated interregional cultural exchange, promoting artistic innovation and experimentation in the region and beyond. Among the boundary-crossing productions analysed in detail are Vi?niec’s Richard III will not Take Place, Jařab’s Macbeth – Too Much Blood, Klata’s Measure for Measure, and Serban’s Richard III. The essay also notes that while there has been a relative scarcity of Shakespearean productions in this region engaging closely with gender and race inequalities, productions such as Klata’s African Tales or Vladimír Morávek’s Othello manage to work with these politically charged topics in subtler but still productive ways. The essay concludes that the region’s shared historical experience of totalitarian regimes followed by the struggles of nascent democracies, provides a fertile ground for a diverse and internationally ambitious Shakespearean theatre.
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