Re-imagining Shakespeare as our Contemporary- Alternate Interpretations of Hamlet in the theatrical space: Traversing from Local to Global and vice versa; an attempt at dismantling the canon or perpetuating its transience?

Abstract

The very act of articulating Shakespeare from a space in the Global South can trigger a maelstrom of contesting ideologies. There was always a mad scramble among academics to interpret and own the bard intimately. Undoubtedly, one of the aspects of British colonial rule was to establish its cultural hegemony and 'Englishness' in the colonies through a well-designed curriculum. However, the colonial structures of power implicated into institutional fabrics make the task of a post-colonial scholar challenging the colonial ideology, quite complex. William Shakespeare, has (often anachronistically), traversed through myriad trajectories of different cultures/ages, becoming through his works, a site of cultural contestation. Hamlet, the eponymous protagonist of the tragedy 'Hamlet', was almost the tragedian's doppelganger, created at a critical juncture in his personal life. This paper looks at the diverse interpretations of the play, to map a transformation from the local to the global and vice versa. Taking the conventional representation of Hamlet by Kenneth Branagh in his 1996 film adaptation as a frame of reference, it examines two other versions of Hamlet, the absurdist, meta theatrical experiment; 'Hamlet: The Clown Prince', directed by Rajat Kapoor and the musical, a Stockhausen media production of 2007, ‘Hamlet in Rock’.

Keywords

• adaptation
• eurocentrism
• post-colonial