{"id":1793,"date":"2012-04-26T16:20:31","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T15:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=1793"},"modified":"2012-04-26T16:27:55","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T15:27:55","slug":"shakespeare-in-kabul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=1793","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare in Kabul"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ShakespeareA remarkable new book <\/a>has just come out about trying to mount a production of Shakespeare in Afghanistan, using a mixed cast, which of course is in itself a radical step.<\/p>\n

Even the discussion about which play to select caused endless difficulties. Most of the comedies have “Male-female interactions\u00a0 that could be problematic in performance\u201d:\u00a0 the Merchant of Venice raises issues of anti-Semitism; Measure for Measure <\/em>and the Taming of the Shrew <\/em>are not funny in a country where many women continue to be treated badly;\u00a0 Miranda pursues a young man in The Tempest <\/em>in a way Afghans would find \u2018inappropriate\u2019.\u00a0 Obviously the history plays with their themes of invasion and insurrection could have played well – Richard II <\/em>being a strong candidate.<\/p>\n

But the producers did want to try to introduce a large female cast, so the search was on for the right comedy.<\/p>\n

Eventually they settled on Love’s Labours Lost<\/em> with its courtly conceit of four young men retiring from the world, and four young women disturbing that seclusion.\u00a0 But even that caused problems. At one point the young men are required to disguise themselves as Russians to woo the women.\u00a0 The actors categorically refused to dress up as Russians.\u00a0 Eventually a compromise was reached.\u00a0 They would disguise themselves as Indians instead.\u00a0 As I know from my own travels in Afghanistan, because of Bollywood movies the Afghans think of India as the home of romance, so this transposition made sense.<\/p>\n

As did these wonderful – and in Kabul, revolutionary – lines from Biron\u2019s speech on the folly of forswearing the company of women:<\/p>\n

From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive:<\/p>\n

they sparkle still the right Promethean fire;<\/p>\n

they are the books, the arts, the academes,<\/p>\n

that show, contain and nourish all the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shakespeare in Kabul\u00a0(Haus) is by Stephen Landrigan\u00a0and Qais Akbar Omar\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A remarkable new book has just come out about trying to mount a production of Shakespeare in Afghanistan, using a mixed cast, which of course is in itself a radical step. Even the discussion about which play to select caused endless difficulties. Most of the comedies have “Male-female interactions\u00a0 that could be problematic in performance\u201d:\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,65,1,3],"tags":[102,101],"class_list":["post-1793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-literature","category-uncategorized","category-travel","tag-kabul","tag-shakespeare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1793"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1799,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions\/1799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}