Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to address the critical impact of local Shakespeare on global Shakespeare by examining a Japanese-Korean adaptation of Othello. Incorporating elements of Korean shamanistic ritual and elements from Japanese noh to create a new reading of Shakespeare’s play with its special concern with Desdemona’s soul, the two theatres interact powerfully with each other. Local Shakespeare functions as a cultural catalyst for the two nations vexed with historical problems. By translating and relocating Shakespeare’s Othello in East Asia, the adaptation succeeds in recreating Shakespeare’s play for contemporary local audiences. In considering the adaptation, this paper explores the vital importance of local Shakespeare and local knowledge for the sake of global Shakespeare as a critical potential. The adaptation might evoke a divided response among a non-local audience. While on the one hand, it attempts to create an ‘original’ production of the Shakespeare play through employing the two Asian cultures, on the other, it employs the Shakespeare play as a conduit for their cultural exchange. This is, and is not, Shakespeare. The paper finally suggests that for all this ambivalence, the adaptation shows some respectful, if unfamiliar, feelings that could be shared by many people around the globe.
Highlights
Globalisation has led to localisation and identity politics
We aim to explore its critical potential to question contemporary global Shakespeare and accommodate a multiplicity of positions and diversity of voices towards the horizon of integrated glocal Shakespeare
In considering the Japanese-Korean adaptation of Othello, this paper has explored the vital importance of local Shakespeare and local knowledge for the sake of global Shakespeare as a critical potential
Summary
Globalisation has led to localisation and identity politics. The linkage between the global and the local has, been contradiction-ridden because of cultural. All of the actors, musicians and singers exit in silence; they leave the stage empty in an attempt to allow the audience to empty and purify their own minds When he discusses the difference between the mugen noh version and the Chohongut version, Lee suggests that ideally, no tragedy should exist in Korea, since pain and grief is released by spirits and living people communally in Korean culture. On the one hand, by the mugen noh tendency to see the world from the perspective of the dead and, on the other, the Korean shamanism that connects this world with the other world, the intercultural performance extends the notions of grief and suffering to include explorations of release This suggests that this new reading of Othello can be regarded as a creative subversion
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