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Over the previous couple of years, the problem of decolonising the curriculum has turn out to be a rising concern for UK universities. This means recognising the legacy of western colonialism and rethinking the best way we train and analysis.
Decolonising Shakespeare, with its historic hyperlinks to English nationwide identification, language and tradition is a very knotty problem. Shakespeare was writing in a rustic that had begun to commerce in slaves simply two years earlier than his delivery, and the racist attitudes that enabled slavery to flourish could be seen in a lot of his performs. However, Shakespeare stays central to many nationwide training methods all over the world, together with nations with historic colonial hyperlinks to Britain.
Though profitable reinterpretations of Shakespeare exist, our efficiency analysis mission aimed to have a look at how actors all over the world might declare Shakespeare for themselves by together with particular points of native tradition of their efficiency. We wished to see what new which means this may carry to the textual content, after which use this method with our college students in Scotland.
The level of this mission is to disrupt and reposition the cultural narratives revealed within the conventional performing of Shakespeare’s performs, specifically difficult the concept notions of tradition, heritage and values “movement out of” the colonial energy and “movement into” colonised international locations.
Inspired by the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa’s #lockdownshakespeare initiative, we established two key rules for our worldwide collaboration: all contributors ought to movie themselves on cell phones and all items ought to be filmed utilizing a neighborhood setting. As nicely as making the method accessible, it prompted these participating to rigorously take into account their location and its potential connection to the textual content.
The play’s the factor
In November 2021, below the steerage of worldwide Shakespeare skilled Ben Crystal, we invited Ghanaian theatre group Act for Change, India’s Salaam Shakespeare Naatak Company and Brazil’s Cena IV, together with our first-year BA Performance college students, to document extracts from Shakespeare’s works in their very own places, with complete freedom to adapt the language and setting.
Collins Seymah Smith taking part in Iago in Othello on the streets of Jamestown, Ghana.
University of the West of Scotland, Author offered
One of essentially the most attention-grabbing components of the mission was how the Ghanaian Act For Change group influenced and impressed a scholar group working in Glasgow. Jamestown, a coastal fishing district in Accra, is without doubt one of the oldest areas of Ghana’s capital metropolis and has lately been reinvented as a vibrant arts scene.
Working in a transformed warehouse from British colonial occasions, Nii Kwartelai Quartey and Collins Seymah Smith selected to discover Othello. They centered on the sumanj)le (suman-jolae), a big bandana-style handkerchief generally worn within the space. One of the potential origins of the phrase is “seaman jolly” and refers to a handkerchief given by a fisherman to his lover as an indication of their romance.
In Othello, the tragic demise of Desdemona is linked to a handkerchief, which Othello has given to her as a token of his love, symbolising her constancy. Act For Change recorded a brief extract from the play on the streets of Jamestown the place Smith, taking part in Iago, Othello’s jealous buddy (and villain of the play), is dressed as a neighborhood fisherman, carrying a sumanj)le and repairing a fishing internet.
In this fashion, they reference the entangled relationship between Iago, Desdemona and Othello by means of the visible metaphor of the fishing internet. By rooting their interpretation of Shakespeare firmly within the cultural context of Jamestown, new layers of significance are revealed that get proper to the guts of the play.
In Smith’s model, as Iago sits crafting the online of lies that may catch Desdemona, he does so carrying the sumanj)le. This offers the viewers a transparent visible picture of how she might be trapped due to her perceived unfaithfulness – she loses her handkerchief, however Iago encourages Othello to imagine she has given it to a different. His carrying of the sumanj)le connects to Desdemona’s handkerchief, decolonising the textual content by means of the usage of one thing that’s particular to the actor’s native tradition to spotlight Iago’s treachery and draw out the which means of the play.
The success of this method prompted Scottish college students participating to ask themselves what objects and places from their very own tradition could possibly be used of their variations of Shakespeare’s Pericles. One group engaged on Act 2 Scene 1 selected to reinterpret the fishermen who uncover Pericles washed up on the shores of North Africa as a bunch of lately unemployed Glasgow dock staff who discover a stranger within the River Clyde.
In the unique, it’s the invention of his father’s armour that leads Pericles to rediscover his function and serves to clarify to the fishermen that Pericles is a person of noble inventory. In the particularly Glasgow-updated Pericles, his protecting armour is modified to a life-saving bottle of Irn-Bru (in Scotland this vibrant orange drink is thought to be a necessary pick-me-up after an enormous night time out). Deciding to make use of this object, the group tailored the textual content:
It hath been a protect
Twixt me and demise; bangin’ hangover treatment.
Think international, act native
In each examples, the teams’ interpretations of Shakespeare give attention to objects that signify their native tradition slightly than the textual content itself. Neither group is nervous about whether or not the viewers perceive the significance of Irn-Bru or the sumanj)le. The objects as an alternative function the important thing to unlock the textual content – for the performers. By working on this approach, they’re able to current extra present and related interpretations of Shakespeare.
Four scenes of Shakespeare being carried out in Ghana, Brazil, India and Scotland.
University of the West of Scotland, Author offered
This method, led by Act for Change in Ghana after which examined in Scotland, revealed how improvements in Shakespeare efficiency within the international south adopted within the international north can result in sensible methods to decolonise Shakespeare.
Focusing on the native setting and tradition makes the works extra relatable to the actors and extra participating to international audiences by illuminating new layers of which means and introducing new methods of deciphering Shakespeare.
The authors don’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that will profit from this text, and have disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.
