Asian Shakespeare

'Asian Shakespeare is changing not only how we understand the plays but reshaping debates about the relation of east and west in the emerging landscape of global culture' (Alexander Huang). Discuss in relation to at least one example of Asian Shakespeare

Shakespeare has been read and performed in Asia for centuries, but it is only in the last few decades that the West has been paying attention to what is referred to as Asian Shakespeare: works of William Shakespeare that have been retold in Asian productions.

In recent years, Shakespeare`s star has been rising in the East. His work is constantly being produced and reinvented for more and more Asian people. In contrast, in the West, by the latter half of the twentieth century, general interest in Shakespeare had arguably begun to wane. All of his plays had been seen before. His followers needed something new to refresh their interest in his work. By this time, there had been countless critically-acclaimed productions which had been delivered in theatres around England and the Americas over the centuries, and there had been many high-quality films produced based on the plays,. In fact, apart from the advent of cinema, not much had changed about the canon of Shakespeare since the nineteenth century; no huge innovations or discoveries in literary or theatrical circles, apart from a few exciting productions in the seventies which challenged Shakespeare conventions. The plays started being produced from new viewpoints, incorporating perspectives such as feminist, New Historicism and African-American studies. This decade also saw Peter Brook`s 1970 RSC collaboration of Midsummer Night`s Dream which included Chinese acrobatics and the roles of Oberon and Theseus and those of Titania and Hippolyta being played by the same actors. Then there was a surge in interest due to Roman Polanski`s 1971 film Macbeth which stayed faithful to the conventional play in its language and its bleak scenery. It used unusual drumming music by experimental seventies group "Third Ear Band" which arguably represented the play`s mystical aspect. This film is widely considered to be the definitive film version of the Macbeth over forty years on. From the mid seventies to the early eighties the BBC also produced a series of Shakespeare adaptations, including Romeo and Juliet, to critical acclaim. However, Asian Shakespeare was still unheard of.

By the fifties, The Royal Shakespeare Company, still the leading theatre production company in England today, had dominated theatre for centuries. Its model of producing Shakespeare was largely considered the best, with little subversion of its conventions. If they themselves were not producing a play, the chances were that a similar organisation following the RSC's practices was instead. While the times were changing, Shakespeare was not. However, over the years, his plays had evolved in The East. Since the nineteenth century, Shakespeare had been performed on stage in Japan in the kabuki (traditional Japanese performance) style. In 1957 came a film that drew the eyes of Westerners far and wide: Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa. A retelling of Macbeth, it is set in sixteenth century Japan (the gekoku era - meaning overthrown-by-underlings) as opposed to the original`s early medieval Scottish highlands. But that was not all it changed. In Throne of Blood, Macbeth and Banquo are now samurai warriors called Washizu and Miki. Gone are the three witches. Instead, Macbeth and Banquo stumble across a forest spirit, an old androgynous figure who uses a spinning wheel for prophesying. Also, in this film, Lady Macbeth (Lady Asaji Washizu) deceives her husband into harbouring paranoid beliefs, like the possibility of Banquo betraying him, in order to convince Macbeth to do her wicked deeds. She is much more manipulative and controlling of Macbeth than in the conventional play. Crucially, at the end of Throne of Blood, Macbeth is not killed by Macduff. Instead, he is shot down with arrows by his own men, which emphasises how much of a deluded and hated figure Macbeth has become. Also, he does not hide from the rain of arrows: he faces them head on, in keeping with the samurai ideal of facing death head on. So, despite his treachery, in a way he dies an honourable death. In Japan, the very idea of a samurai warrior being as evil as Macbeth is unthinkable, so even though the name of its era conjures up images of regicide such as those in Macbeth, they`ve changed the ending slightly in order to convey the ideals of Japan. Most of the changes that have been made are to fit in with the ideology of the Japanese, so that it is understood well by its Japanese audience, while staying faithful to the themes of the Scottish play, such as the dangers of power.

This aspect of the play comes through very strongly in the Chinese stage adaptation of Macbeth, Kingdom of Desire, performed by Contemporary Legend Theatre. The powerful opening lines are: "How lamentable that people see not that fame, fortune and power in reality are only illusions, a reflection of the moon in water" (CLT, 1986). This suggests that we should think about what is really important in life, such as love and family, rather than material things. This sets the tone for the whole play. The speaker of the words is the "mountain spirit" - Kingdom of Desire`s equivalent of the three witches. The writers of this adaptation portray her as someone who tires of the selfishness of people and wants to create some chaos, which gives us an idea of her motives for prophesying to Macbeth. She wants to wreak havoc on this ambitious warrior. We don`t get that from the text of the "original" which opens with a quick scene from the three witches. They say and do very little, except make their arrangements to meet Macbeth, then the next scene is the one where King Duncan is told of Macbeth`s battle efforts. So it could be argued that, in at least some cases, Asian Shakespeare, in its interpretation of the original text, makes it more accessible and more exciting, not just for its Asian audiences but its Western audiences as well "Contemporary Legend Theatre is one of the best blends of Eastern and Western techniques I have seen yet. In any language this is exciting theater." (Review of The Kingdom of Desire, from The Guardian, UK, 1986).

The Kingdom of Desire takes some inspiration from Throne of Blood, with the Lady Macbeth (Lady Au-Shu) in this bearing a slight (but not complete) resemblance to the one in Throne of Blood. In both productions, Lady Macbeth falls pregnant with Macbeth (Au-Shu)`s child and then miscarries. She also skilfully convinces her guests at the celebration of Macbeth`s coronation that his crazed ramblings are due to alcohol, in the same way that Lady Washizu does in Throne of Blood. The two Macbeth adaptations share some similarities but there are also subtle but important differences:

"Throne of Blood asserts an experience of collectivity, whereas Kingdom shifts our attention back to individuality, like the original Shakespeare play. What they have in common is the Buddhist idea of relinquishing secular ambition and desire; otherwise we lead ourselves into self-destruction and fall into a ceaseless, vicious circle of nothing" (Huang, p.105).

While the two productions both take on attributes of their own culture, they are still faithful to the main themes of Shakespeare`s work. Rather than trying to translate a Shakespeare play, they try to transform it. They keep the interest of the Western scholar and the Eastern theatregoer at the same time. The writers of these productions have looked deeply at the subtext and metaphors in Shakespeare`s original work, and then worked out a way to convey them using their own ideology and style of theatre, such as kabuki, or Noh, in the case of Chinese theatre. For example, halfway through The Kingdom of Desire, a female dancer comes on stage, slowly revealing three different masks one by one, to symbolise Lady Macbeth`s deceptive nature. This is a theatrical way of conveying Shakespeare`s intended meaning to the Chinese audience:

"When actors speak Shakespeare in a language colloquially shared with spectators - the condition of the performance of most plays and films in history - his archaic verse is transformed into new writing without the interruptions of archaic English, which demands that we engage in a form of mental translation in order to comprehend" (Kennedy and Yong, p.3).

Through relaxing the rules of Shakespeare and changing some aspects of the plays (the historical context, the language), Asian Shakespeare has become much more accessible to people living in Asia, and indirectly, all over the world. This success is a reflection not only of the power of Shakespeare`s work, but also of the increasing power of Asian countries, particularly China and Japan, and their working closely on global issues with Western nations. Also, it can`t just be down to coincidence that in the time that Asian Shakespeare has become popular, Western countries and Eastern countries have become closer. The ease and pleasure with which Shakespeare is translated, reinterpreted and enjoyed anew in Eastern countries makes the plays act almost like ambassadors between the nations.

"Great ideas transcend historical and cultural boundaries and can be articulated in many different forms and languages," he said. "Shakespeare lends himself to translation-many directors believe that Shakespeare in translation is more effective, more sexy and spicy than in his original text...encountering these plays through refreshing performances in new contexts can reinvigorate our dulled senses...Shakespeare in translation doesn't take away from the Bard. Instead, it makes his work more relevant to a worldwide audience." (Huang, GW Today, 28/11/11)

So it would appear that in being reinterpreted, Shakespeare is given a new lease of life. It is often the case that when a work of art or literature is taken to another country and remade, it becomes more popular in its original country. In modern culture, this happens a lot with musicians; an example being the guitarist Jimi Hendrix who couldn`t get a record label or an audience in the United States, and then when he came to England and his music started being released here, he became one of the most famous musicians in his original country.

There is now a great variety of productions of Shakespeare, represented by many cultures, that are available to watch on the stage and the screen, in no small part, thanks to the adventurous spirit of Asian Shakespeare. Through this unique blending of rich English and Asian heritage, East and West are encouraged to work together and form harmonious relationships in business, world affairs as well as entertainment. From the latter part of the twentieth century to today, culture in Asia, particularly Japan, have been strongly influenced by Western culture. Characters in Japanese Manga books and Anime cartoons are western-looking, often with blue eyes and American accents. Some Western bands such as The Beatles have been especially popular in Japan. In the documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil, the band have their biggest success in Japan, with the audience being much bigger and livelier than in their own country - Canada - or in the United States. The same is also true vice versa. In Western countries the popularity of Japan has grown increasingly over the last thirty years due to a fanbase of modern Japanese culture that seems to get bigger. Japanese video game companies Sega and Nintendo started out in the eighties and dominate gaming today. Pokemon was a craze in the late nineties and early noughties, with the animated series, video games and trading cards all contributing to its worldwide success. Also extremely succesful are the animated Studio Ghibli films such as My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away, cosplay - dressing up as anime and manga - is a pasttime enjoyed by many in the United States and the United Kingdom. Now in Japan and many other Eastern and Western countries trade shows selling and promoting Japanese cuisine, anime memorabilia and holding cosplay shows, all being held in large arenas such as London's Earls Court Exhibition Centre, and attracting thousands. More recently, other Asian countries have started to experience similar success. Chinese and Korean pop music have become popular in the West. Indian music and Bollywood have also become fashionable.

East and West are now mixing in new and exciting ways and it appears that this relationship is only going to get stronger and the mix is going to become more diverse. It must be fair to say that Shakespeare had a hand in this.

Bibliography Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) Directed by Sacha Gervasi (DVD), Abramorama The Guardian (1986), Review of The Kingdom of Desire, The Guardian, 1986 Huang, Alexander C.Y. & Rossi, Charles S. (ed.), Shakespeare in Hollywood, Asia and Cyberspace, USA, Purdue University Press, 2009 Kennedy, Dennis & Li Lan, Yong, Shakespeare in Asia: Contemporary Performance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010 The Kingdom of Desire, (1986), Directed by Hsing-Ku Wu, available at: http://globalshakespeares.org/kingdom-of-desire-wu-hsingkuo-1986/ (accessed 15/01/12) Mulryne, J.R., Sasayama, Takashi & Shewring, Margaret (ed), Shakespeare and the Japanese Stage, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998 Shakespeare, William, Macbeth, New York, Norton, 2008 The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971), Directed by Roman Polanski (DVD), Caliban Films Throne of Blood (1957), Directed by Akira Kurasawa (DVD), Tohu Company, Kurasawa Productions Ltd.

http://gwtoday.gwu.edu/people/theglobalinfluenceofshakespeare (accessed 21/03/12)