Hamlet’s Arab journey: Shakespeare’s prince and Nasser’s ghost

344 Pages·2011·2.88 MB·English

by  Margaret Litvin

Hamlet’s Arab Journey
SERIES EDITOR EMILY APTER
A list of titles in the series appears at the back of the book.
Margaret Litvin
HAMLET’S ARAB
JOURNEY
Shakespeare’s Prince and Nasser’s Ghost
Copyright © 2011 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Litvin, Margaret, 1974–
Hamlet’s Arab journey : Shakespeare’s prince and Nasser’s ghost / Margaret Litvin.
p. cm. — (Translation/transnation)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-13780-3 (alk. paper)
1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616. Hamlet. 2. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—
Appreciation—Arab countries. 3. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Translations into
Arabic—History and criticism. 4. Hamlet (Legendary character) 5. Heroes in
literature. 6. Politics in literature. 7. Egypt—Civilization—English influences. 8.
Arabic drama—Egypt—History and criticism. 9. Arabic drama—20th century—History
and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
PR2807.L63 2011
822.3'3—dc22 2011005331
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Adobe Caslon Pro
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Gary and Maria Litvin
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration and Translation
Introduction
“When Shakespeare Travels Abroad”
The Global Kaleidoscope
Hamlet and Political Agency
1 Hamlet in the Daily Discourse of Arab Identity
“Time Out of Joint”: Coming to Terms with History
“Shall We Be or Not Be?”: Personifying the Group
“Words, Words, Words”: Forging an Identity
“The Play’s the Thing”
2 Nasser’s Dramatic Imagination, 1952–64
Revolutionary Drama
Theatre Joins the Battle
Shakespeare on the Sidelines
3 The Global Kaleidoscope: How Egyptians Got Their Hamlet, 1901–64
Beyond Caliban
“Bend Again toward France”
“Do It, England!”
Independence and Soviet Shakespeare
Bidayr’s “Cruel Text”
4 Hamletizing the Arab Muslim Hero, 1964–67
In Search of Social Justice
Psychological Interiority as a Ground for Political Agency
Sulayman: “Justice or Oppression? That Is the Puzzle”
Al-Hallaj: “Who Will Give Me a Seeing Sword?”
De-Hamletized Revivals
5 Time Out of Joint, 1967–76
“Something Is Rotten”: Theatre and the 1967 Defeat
Martyrs for Justice: “Abstract and Brief Chronicles” of the 1970s
Sadat’s Open Door: “To Cook or Not to Cook?”
A Dilemma
6 Six Plays in Search of a Protagonist, 1976–2002
Silencing Hamlet
“A Play Can’t Stab”
“His Sword Kept Sticking Up”
A Prodigal Cousin
Post-Political Laughs
Epilogue: Hamlets without Hamlet
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURES
Gamal Abdel Nasser and Nikita Khrushchev celebrate the Soviet-
2.1.
built Aswan High Dam, 1964.
Nasser poses with student actors at a University of Damascus
2.2.
Shakespeare performance, 1961.
Yahya recites from Hamlet in Youssef Chahine’s Alexandria Why,
3.1.
1978.
Seven hundred people attend a discussion of Hamlet in Cairo,
3.2.
February 1965.
3.3. Innokenti Smoktunovsky in Grigori Kozintsev’s Gamlet, 1964.
Mahmoud El Lozy’s 2004 revival turns Farag’s Sulayman of Aleppo
4.1.
into a “political cabaret.”
Nader Omran’s A Theatre Company Found a Theatre and
6.1
“Theatred” Hamlet, 1984.
Nigel Barrett as Claudius in Sulayman Al-Bassam’s The Al-Hamlet
6.2.
Summit, 2002.
EP.1. Nunnery scene at Café Cilantro in Hani Afifi’s I Am Hamlet, 2009.
TABLES
4.1. Hamletizing the Arab Muslim Protagonist, 1964–67
5.1. Two Hamlet Adaptations and a Shakespeare Spoof, 1971–78
6.1. Six Arab Hamlet Offshoot Plays, 1976–2004