Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

Reinterpreting the‘Bard’: Shakespearean Performances in India and (East)Germany

Abstract

This essay attempts to undertake a comparative study of the Shakespearean appropriations in late 19th century India under colonial rule on one hand, and in mid-20th century (East) Germany on the other. While 19th century Indian responses to Shakespeare carried a covert nationalist agenda against the British rulers who had made him complicit in the colonial project, the mid-20th century German adaptations found in him, a potent site for voicing their opposition against the governments, which had imposed censorship regulations upon newspapers, books and television. Within this framework and making use of the textual, performative and audience sensibility components, the paper would endeavor to: a) explore the nuances in the performance strategies of selected playwrights from both the countries, and understand the extent of divergences and departures from the English text; and b) scrutinise the location of these performances respectively within the overlapping currents of colonial modernity, nationality and regional identity in the 19th and 20th century India, and the post-war communist regimes operating in (East) Germany.

Keywords

Theatre in India and Germany, Shakespearean adaptations, Comparative Analysis, Indian Response to Shakespeare

PDF

Author Biography

Dhurjjati Sarma

Assistant Professor of English


References

Bhatia, Nandi. (2004). Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance: Theater and Politics in Colonial and Postcolonial India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press

Chatterjee, Sudipto. (2007). The Colonial Staged: Theater in Colonial Calcutta. London, New York and Calcutta: Seagull Books

Chaudhuri, Sukanta. ‘Shakespeare in India’, Internet Shakespeare Editions. Accessible at http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Criticism/shakespearein/india1.html

Chaudhuri, Sukanta and Lim, Chee Seng. (2006). Shakespeare without English: The Reception of Shakespeare in Non-anglophone Countries. New Delhi: Pearson Education India.

Das, Sisir Kumar. (2005). Shakespeare in Indian Languages. In Poonam Trivedi and Dennis Bartholomeusz (eds), India’s Shakespeare: Translation, Interpretation, and Performance. Newark: University of Delaware Press

Ewbank, Inga-Stina. (1996). Shakespeare Translation as Cultural Exchange. In Stanley Wells (ed.), Shakespeare Survey, Volume 48: Shakespeare and Cultural Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Guntner, Lawrence. (1993). Brecht and Beyond: Shakespeare on the East German Stage. In Dennis Kennedy (ed.), Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Joughin, John J. (ed.). (1997). Shakespeare and National Culture. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press

Kennedy, Dennis (ed.). (1993). Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Loomba, Ania. (1997). Shakespearian Transformations. In John J. Joughin (ed.), Shakespeare and National Culture. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press

Loomba, Ania and Martin Orkin. (eds). (1998). Post-Colonial Shakespeares. London and New York: Routledge

Sarkar, Abhishek. (2010). ‘Girish Chandra’s Macbeth: Colonial Modernity and the Poetics of Translation’, paper presented in the International Congress of Bengal Studies, held at the University of Delhi. 28th-31st February 2010

Singh, Jyotsna G. (1996). Shakespeare and the ‘Civilizing Mission’. In Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues: ‘Discoveries’ of India in the Language of Colonialism. London and New York: Routledge

Singh, Jyotsna G. (2009). ‘Different Shakespeares: The Bard in Colonial/Postcolonial India’, in Nandi Bhatia (ed.), Modern Indian Theatre: A Reader. New Delhi: Oxford University Press

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.