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October 29, 2007
Modern Shakespeare
I note regular Independent and Evening Standard columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, is performing at the Watermans Art Centre, in Brentford, this week.
The Ealing Common resident has written Nowhere to Belong: Tales of an Extravagant Stranger, which apparently explores her love of Shakespeare as well as her life before her family’s expulsion from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972.
In our interview, she talks about the universality of Shakespeare and how the Bard crosses the divide of all nations blah,blah,blah..
Sounds impressive – but not impressive enough.
‘Cos let me tell you Yasmin, when I was 16 (and that was a long time ago), I was also involved in infusing Shakespeare with the whole idea of race and identity, when I belonged to the Greenwich Youth Theatre.
In fact, my infusion was around a rock version of Othello, a black Othello with a white Desdemona, which we took to Czechoslovakia prior to the Velvet revolution. And the directors had the same argument then, how the universality of Shakespeare can touch the lives of those living in the far corners of the world plus the exploration of identitiy...
However, I would respectively suggest it’s time to move on, from what is becoming a bit of cliché - to keep using the works of Shakespeare to highlight modern social issues.
How about the Simpsons?
Posted by sazam at October 29, 2007 3:57 PM