Much Ado About Shakespeare
Text by Sun Ruoqian
October 2008: Hamlet 1990, a drama directed by Lin Zhaohua, is staged in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Its unique costumes and subversive reimagining made it a hit. IC
Britain’s National Theatre Live made a trip to Beijing to present a run of Hamlet at the China Film Archive in late 2015. In March 2016, Lithuania’s OKT Theatre Company presented Hamlet at the PLA Opera House. Residents of China’s capital could enjoy at least two totally different world-class productions of Hamlet within just a few months.
This year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. China has welcomed a fair share of productions of his works by troupes from all over the world. Over the last 20 years, however, Chinese directors have vigorously worked on adapting Shakespeare in a variety of ways, including Peking Opera, local operas, drama, and even movies, but few provoked a response like Hamlet 1990 directed by Lin Zhaohua.
More than a century has passed since Shakespeare was officially introduced to China with publication of the first Chinese translation of Selected Works of William Shakespeare in 1904. In 1978, People’s Literature Publishing House published Complete Works of William Shakespeare translated by Zhu Shenghao. Translations of Shakespeare have been revised and updated – a continuous exploration and evolution of the study of the literary giant in the Chinese-speaking world. China’s fascination with the Bard is evident from the volume of research performed on his works in the country.
Sun Bai, associate professor of movie and drama at Renmin University of China, explains that there are special reasons Shakespeare has been so well received around the planet, including China. During the 20th Century, Britain and the United States produced movies adapted from the Shakespeare’s plays, and they were followed by other countries such as Japan and the Soviet Union.
Despite the shadow of the Cold War, globalization was already starting to sweep across the planet. During the Cold War era, culture was utilized strategically to strengthen various nations’ historical position along with the rise of modern civilization by amplifying or subverting cultural coordinates set by icons like Shakespeare.
November 1, 2007: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a Shakespearean comedy, is previewed at Beijing Poly Theater. CFP
July 2, 2015, Gyula, Hungary: Richard III is performed by the Chinese National Theatre at the 11th Gyula Shakespeare Festival.
February 11, 2012, Shanghai: A rehearsal for Antony and Cleopatra. CFP
In 1981, a Tibetan version of Romeo and Juliet rocked the Chinese theatrical circles. IC
Kingdom of Desire, a modern Peking Opera, is adapted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. CFP
Modern Chinese actors interpret Antony and Cleopatra, a Shakespearean tragedy written in 1607. CFP
“During the film and culture boom after World War II, many countries adapted Shakespeare for different reasons,” says Sun. “He was widely seen as the courier of the ideological and cultural legacies shared by mankind, and became popular on the big screen during the rise of globalization. For later-developed countries, China today in particular, the adaptation of his canon has almost become a necessity for selfidentification, both politically and culturally, to join the globalization team.”
Lin Zhaohua’s Hamlet 1990 was released right at a turning point for Chinese cultural circles, when more and more small theatrical performances began emerging, clearing out brand-new space for Lin and other theater standouts of the era. Lin established a drama studio in 1990 that became one of the few independent theater societies in China. However, all the lead roles were cast with actors from the prestigious Beijing People’s Art Theater.
August 12, 2011: Wu Hsing-kuo, a Peking Opera performer from Taiwan, showcases his reworked King Lear at the Edinburgh Festival. CFP
“It was born at the overlapping of the ‘central’ and the ‘rim’ of Chinese drama,” explains Sun Bai. “State-owned troupes were no longer the only dominator of the theatrical market in China, yet emerging forces could hardly survive without the support of the system.”
The country’s rapid development has made it possible to interpret and elaborate on Hamlet in various ways. Feng Xiaogang’s 2006 film The Banquet, for instance, was loosely adapted from Hamlet. It places similar stories of power, revenge, love and death in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms between 907 and 960. However, it was never considered a successful Chinese adaptation of Hamlet, declares Dai Jinhua, director of Peking University’s Center for Film and Cultural Studies. “The Banquet is an ancient costume series, an icon of Orientalism, yet has no basis in any actual historical stage of China,” adds Dai. “The plot and characters’ behavior are not supported by Chinese cultural logic.”
Some successes have emerged. Contemporary Legend Theater, established by actor Wu Hsing-kuo, reworked some of Shakespeare into Peking Opera, including The Tragedy of Hamlet based on Hamlet, King Lear, and Kingdom of Desire based on Macbeth. Not only were they hits in Beijing and Shanghai, but they even won acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival.
Despite the fact that so few successful Peking Opera adaptations of Shakespeare have been staged, Chinese artists have continued trying. Some scholars argue that the similarities in mind space are too few despite any coincidental or passing similarities between Shakespeare and traditional Chinese opera. As evidence to the contrary, the success of Wu Hsingkuo’s version lies in the fact that he never attempted to “Sinicize” Shakespeare’s tone. “They are neither loyal to the original nor localized,” remarks Sun. Rather, “they hover somewhere in between, far beyond the tug-of-war between the East and West, modern and traditional, and familiar and exotic.”
“The Shakespeare situation in China is pretty ‘intertwined,’” adds Sun. “The entire planet has been globalized, yet the national boundary accentuated by political and cultural barriers is still glaring. And Shakespeare shows the cultural conflict between the two, not just in China: His plays embody Western culture as supreme achievements in world literature, yet they will surely bump into cultural barriers in whatever country they are staged.”