This study aims to give an account of Shakespeare in the light of Asian cultural diversity that is characteristic of multiculturalism and multilingualism. The approach to the relationship between Shakespeare and diverse Asian theatre forms is focused on encounters between East Asia and Southeast Asia on Shakespearean stage. Exemplary cases for such encounters are
From the outset much emphasis on Asian diversity was developed. Kishida and Ong shared a strategic plan to connect artists from different Asian countries and from both the traditional and contemporary fields. They set out to stimulate them to perform in their own languages and cultural styles, and enabled them to engage in the presentation of various Asian artistic forms. Their treatment of Asian cultural diversity on Shakespeare stage is in line with the concept of Asian century which lays stress on “maturing and progressive relationships among countries in the region” in the twenty-first century (“Asian Century”). Thus the two productions are designed in concert with a range of Asian cultural and linguistic elements that at once coexist and exist on their own. Diverse theatre forms are situated in relation to each other, working across or along the borders of geography and culture. Artists are invited to participate as performers, and at the same time as collaborators.
Performance language in
Such an expansive nature of stage practice is characterized by artistic and cultural variation. Most distinctive is the coexistence of mutually independent visions of theatres in East Asia and Southeast Asia. The multifarious characteristics of these two productions strengthen Amanda Rogers’s idea of theatre as a creative cultural product: it “provides a way to consider transnational imaginations and practices in tandem with one another” working as “both the agent and medium for expressing and forging transnational geographies” (211). They also lend support to the notion advanced by Michael Dobson that “Shakespeare may have said comparatively little about Asia, but with major theatre and film industries now flourishing in Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia—as well as India, Japan, and China—Asia has more and more to say about Shakespeare” (“Shakespeare and Asia”). In accordance with Rogers’s words and Dobson’s this paper attempts to give an account of the ways in which ‘transnational imaginations and practices’ of East Asian and Southeast Asian artists, both traditional and modern, ‘say about Shakespeare’ in
II. Desdemona: Multiplicity is Eloquence
Such ‘an inspiring integration’ is evident in the creation of a new character called Zero, whose role is played by the seven of practitioners in traditional and contemporary art forms: the Korean video artist and costume designer Park Hwa Young, the Singaporean-Australian video installation artist Matthew Ngui, the Korean traditional percussion musicians Jang Jae Hyo and Shin Chang Yool, the Singaporean contemporary actor Low Kee Hong, the Indonesian court dancer Martinus Miroto, and the Myanmarese puppeteer U Zaw Min. Seven Zeros mainly perform their own art, and at times play the roles of Desdemona’s mother, servants, or slaves. In the production’s program notes at the Telstra Adelaide Festival, Ong gives an answer to the question as to what is zero: “Zero is the beginning, zero is the end, zero is negative Space, zero is absence, zero is shadow, zero is the echo, zero is the reflection, zero is the trace, zero is the source, zero is the process” (qtd. in Grehan 122). His definition suggests that Zero stimulates the audience’s imagination to read between the lines in an attempt to find psychological bases of, and hidden causes for, the actions of Othello and Desdemona.
This inclusive approach is relevant, because an impetus to intercultural appropriation of Shakespeare results from a sense that encounters between East Asian and Southeast Asian performance traditions offer a meeting ground which recognizes differences in them. Furthermore Ong employs the contemporary video installation art, thereby extending the scope of a meeting ground and making their encounters much more multidisciplinary. In this way a composite of the multifaceted performance and visual arts is embedded in
For this purpose Shakespearean dukedom of Venice is transferred to a kingdom of Asia currently ruled by Othello. His father’s father invaded and conquered this country. The story of a black Moorish husband and a white Christian wife is transposed to that of the conqueror husband and the conquered wife. Desdemona is portrayed as a slave whose duty is to bear a son to Othello. Her role is played by the Malaysian-Singaporean contemporary actress Claire Wong. The action of the play begins with Desdemona’s entrance: she crouches on her knees between the wooden blocks with the white stripes on them, and faces the video camera in front of her. Then the visual image is projected on the screens at the back of the stage: astonishingly the white stripes on the wooden blocks are put together in the shape of a big O, by which Desdemona seems enclosed. The movements of her hands and arms look like those of a Myanmarese string puppet.
William Peterson describes Desdemona’s position as being “trapped inside the circle like a human-sized puppet” and “symbolic of her entrapment by the yet-unseen Othello” (“Consuming” 85). Similarly Grehan interprets the O image as “a large white circle signifying O/thello” (122). The image of confinement projected by Desdemona’s appearance is heightened by what she speaks. Desdemona’s first speech is composed of the words such as “My words” “My tears” “My grief” “My blood” “My shadow,” and finishes up with the sentence “I am alone inside Othello, I hate you” (Prologue).
The O-puppet-silence association has psychological effects on Desdemona’s relation to her mother. The more Desdemona feels frustrated with her husband, the more she indulges in reminiscences of her mother: “Mother when I remember you, I become Desdemona. When the wind whispers, my memories return. Mother, the things you taught me, return” (Scene 4B). Having the remembrance of her mother reinforces her self-identity. While Desdemona is talking about her mother, Jang and Shin play the traditional Korean music, and Zaw Min dances like a puppet rather than a puppeteer. As Zaw Min’s dancing adopts Myanmarese puppet characteristic movements, Desdemona imitates him. According to Ong, Zaw Min’s performance “suggests the presence of Desdemona’s mother” (“Encounters” 128).
Along with a puppet dance, the Korean Pansori
In this production Desdemona comes back as a ghost in order to take vengeance on Othello for her own death. After Othello is killed, the ghost of Desdemona, ‘the presence of Desdemona’s mother,’ and Othello’s slave perform a shamanistic dance to the exciting rhythms of the traditional Korean music. The shamanistic dance and music signify a ritual of securing the spirits of the dead to the peaceful state. After their dancing, a close up image of a Myanmarese puppet is projected on the screens, and shows how each wooden part of a puppet is connected by strings. This image of a puppet no longer stands for the confinement, now that the soul of Desdemona gains the comfort through the shamanistic dance. Thus multiple art forms are employed to depict the story of Desdemona.
As for Othello, the production dissociates him from being an example of offensive racial stereotyping, but instead presents him on the assumption “What if Othello was played by a woman or by a slight, slender boy?” (“Encounters” 126-27). Ong comes up with a decision that the character of Othello should be played as the two roles by two practitioners trained in Indian traditional arts such as Koodiyattam and Kathakali. The two roles of Othello are alternated between the Koodiyattam actor Madhu Margi looking like ‘a slight, slender boy,’ and the Kathakali actress Maya Krishna Rao looking like a strong power ‘woman.’ The casting of a feminine man and a masculine woman in this production, however, does neither follow the tradition of cross-gender casting in Asian theatres nor the convention of casting women in certain roles written for men in contemporary actings of Shakespeare.
Rao’s role as the female Othello is far from exploring a character regendered for the opposite sex. She enacts her part by means of voice, gestures, and movements in accordance with the distinctive art styles of Kathakali. Rao’s various facial expressions have a demonstration of how emotions shift in series from a controlled, then to an agitated, and to a trance, state. At some point, between her performances on stage, the video projection of a prerecorded interview with her is displayed on screens. Rao appears as an ordinary woman rather than an Kathakali actress, switching “from singing the jazz song ‘Buttercup’ to a Malayali folk song” (Yong, “Ong Ken Sen’s
Yong Li Lan comments that Rao is ”not actively cross-dressed, but rather played an old Othello androgynously” and “his unutterable memories and dreams almost wordlessly, in movements, grunts, and roars” (“Shakespeare” 202). Yong’s words ‘androgynously’ and ‘roars’ are indicative of the importance of roar in Kathakali art form. In this sense it is worth noting Arya Madhavan’s assertion that the female roar is one of the most significant innovations in the male-dominated world of Kathakali. Madhavan points out that although in the history of Kathakali no specific training practice has been handed down even to male performers, roar has been acknowledged as “a model of masculinity, a male archetype” (“Between” 93). For this reason she puts emphasis on the individual quality of female voice: “Performers roar differently and therefore the roar of a woman will be a female roar, not a male roar” and “It will have its own identity and texture” (“Between” 93).
Madhavan’s explanation lends credence to the androgynous characteristics of Rao’s role in roaring. It is closely bound up with Ong’s directorial intention regarding the doubling of genders: “Maya Rao hinted at Othello, his father, the female within him, and much more. Maya wanted a flow between male and female” (“Encounters” 127). He takes this matter further contending that “Opposed to narrow portrayals of gender that would reinforce stereotypes, she was not costumed/made-up to look like a man. Rather than play two characters, she represented the male and female aspects in Othello” (“Encounters” 127). From this viewpoint Rao’s Othello does not intersect with gender issues. She is not only the other self within Othello himself but also the other performer within the field of Kathakali.
Ong’s phrase ‘much more’ implies that the capacity of Rao’s role extends to that of Othello’s mother. In the Epilogue of the production, subtitled ‘Othello’s Mother Kissing the Sun,’ two Othellos and Desdemona are seen all happy together on stage. The male Othello is now dead, and his ghost sits side by side with the ghost of Desdemona. The female Othello who is now described as Othello’s mother crosses the stage very slowly using movement patterns of Kathakali, while two ghosts talk in chorus with a smile “Inside the world of the living our eyes were sealed. But inside the world of death our eyes were uncovered. We are waiting . . . waiting . . . ” (Epilogue). The ghost couple face in the same direction as though they are looking at Othello’s Mother kissing the sun.
Rao’s role as Othello’s mother embodies a memory trace that the male Othello and Desdemona yearn for. Her presence is a consoling reminder of their relationship with their own mother. The male Othello keeps saying “I do not have memories of my mother” (Scene 4C), whereas Desdemona cherishes memories of her mother “I will not forget you mother, as you could not forget your mother” (Scene 4B). As regards a bond between mother and child, the male Othello’s self-forgetting and Desdemona’s remembering are the core elements that make
The male and female Othellos do not raise the issues of ethnic identities, as both Margi and Rao are Indians, and both Koodiyattam and Kathakali are practiced in the province of Kerala. They have more to do with a synthesis of attributes conventionally labeled masculine and feminine rather than the difference between regions and cultures. Two Othellos have implications of the fluidity of multiple selves. Such features emanate from the multiplicity embedded in Koodiyattam, and enhanced by the male Othello Margi’s stylized performance. To use the comment made by Madhavan as a Koodiyattam artist and scholar, this theatre form “is largely reliant on multiple transformational acting” “by which each actor (male or female) transforms into various characters (male or female) during the course of drama” (Introduction 6).
In this respect Margi’s Koodiyattam Othello is measured in relation to Rao’s Kathakali Othello. As is the case of Rao, a prerecorded interview with Margi is projected on the screens. Unlike her, however, he is not seen but heard explaining the ways he was trained and taught Koodiyattam acting by his father. The voice-over narration is in parallel with the on-screen photos of a Koodiyattam performer’s face with colorful makeup on and the process of making up his face. The audible and visual projections bring attention to Margi’s relationship with his father who had a major influence on his performing career. The actor Margi’s story of his own father in real life is juxtaposed with the male Othello Margi’s story of his father on stage. When the male Othello makes his first appearance, he speaks a soliloquy revealing his troubled mind:
I was given this key when my father was about to die. My father was given this key when my father’s father was about to die. Eventually I will give this key to my son when I die. I do not have a son yet. This is the key to my kingdom. I want a son to whom I can give this key to. I want a son, I want a son.” (Scene 2)
His first speech is characterized by his preoccupation with a male heir who will succeed to the royal line of his kingdom.
The male Othello’s obsessive words about a father and son relationship are pronounced again. He says how crucial it is for him to inherit his ancestry and carry on his family name: “I am Othello. My father was also Othello. My father’s father was also Othello. In time, my son will also be called Othello. Do I exist? I do not know” (Scene 6B). The need to stick to a male heir is to have the capacity to rule and the authority to govern. Having a son is equivalent to keeping himself in existence. Obviously Desdemona fails to give birth to a son. But her failure is not the reason why the male Othello kills her. It is because Desdemona has something that he has not: the memory of a mother. Killing his wife is meant to erase the memories of his mother, and furthermore disapprove of his wife’s strong bond with her mother. As Priscilla Netto contends, the murder of Desdemona is “fuelled by Othello’s fear as she represents all that is female” (337).
For this reason the act of retaliation done by the ghost of Desdemona is intended as a backlash against androcentrism advanced by the male Othello. In reprisal for her untimely death she urges her husband to acknowledge the significance of the female bond, and “encounter the female within him, including his mother” (“Encounters” 127). For this purpose she possesses the bodies of the male Othello and male slave, and transforms them into two women who take a shine to each other kissing passionately. The act of kissing is symbolic of death by poisoning. To apply Ong’s words, this way to get revenge is pertinent to the way of “discovering the She within the He, of discovering the other within the self, of discovering another culture within one’s culture” (qtd. in Netto 338).
In
III. Lear Dreaming: Minimalism is Eloquence
So as to represent characters who are associated with a family-like relationship, performers exert their capacity to effect a response through emotions. In an interview with Margherita Laera, Ong defines
Such a minimalistic approach has a demonstration that the action is set within a music frame of reference. The scenery and props are not used for stage set. Stage lighting, graphic design, and laser beams are employed to create vividly impressive backdrops. The costume colors display the combination of black and white in view of a color trend for minimalism. Unlike
Minimalism in
The remarks made by Mahasarinand and Peterson endorse Ong’s treatment of performers as “individuals with their particular and strong sense of self” (“Being Affected” 173). His directorial motivation is attuned to match Shakespearean Lear story to that of Asian Old Man. In an interview with Chin Hui Wen, Ong gives a reply to the question as to “the biggest challenge melding the Eastern and Western aspects of the piece”: “With Western storytelling, there’s a beginning, middle and end. But the Asian way is done through memory. It’s abstract. Though more imaginative, it is less realistic” (“Interview: Ong Keng Sen for
Diverse Asian traditional sounds illuminate their roles in sustaining minimal narratives.
After the Prologue the Old Man enters and starts off his speech with a question “Who am I?” His question is resonant with the words told by Shakespeare’s King Lear “Does any here know me?”(1.4.208), “Who is it that can tell me who I am” (1.4.212). Lear speaks this line when Goneril denounces him for his irrational and volatile behavior. He furiously scolds her for her ingratitude, and feels a pang of remorse for what he has done to Cordelia. To adopt Elizabeth Frazer’s theory, this is when “Lear is emotional” and when he yells out “what he is feeling and what he is angry and sad about” (140). Like Lear, the Old Man expresses the anguish of not knowing who he is: “I was sleeping the sleep of the dead. Sleeping in the terror of a nightmare I cannot recall. Now the sound of music echoes in my ears. Musicians, cut the roots of my nightmare, open my eyes. Who was I long ago?” (Scene 1). Unlike Lear, the Old Man’s overwhelming feelings abide in memory.
In immediate response to the Old Man’s request for music, the Daughter plays the pipa. The sound of pipa music functions as bringing memories back to the Old Man. His mind flashes back to the most poignant moment of his life, that is, the time when he was deceived by the Daughter’s smooth talk and outraged by his younger daughter’s cool silence. The younger daughter never appears on stage, but the presence of her silence permeates throughout the production. When the Old Man discloses his wish to make a trip around his kingdom accompanied by his Loyal Attendant, the Daughter gives him “words of promise”: “You are my father, my King. I will give you everything. I will bestow the joy of freedom on you”; “Your throne will be waiting for you. Father, come back whenever you like. Enjoy your travels, Father” (Scene 2). She promises him ostensibly, and he believes her truly.
Gamelan musicians as the Chorus perform music and song, describing what happens inside the palace while the Old Man goes outside. They make comments warning that a solemn promise turns out to be an act of betrayal: “Words make fortune and misfortune” and “You are doomed and damned by betrayal” (Scene 3). The Old Man’s feeling of impending doom is bound up with the memory of his Wife. According to Ong, his remembrance of her bears testimony to “the sensitivity and vulnerability of the dreams of the father figure” (Peterson, “Being Affected” 172). This explains why the Old Man and his Wife are presented as the doubling of selves and genders. Umewaka plays both parts of man and wife. His dual role is linked up with the Noh tradition of male actors taking female characters.
The Old Man’s Wife appears as a ghost, and tells about what a deserted life she had: “Round and round went the spinning wheel. Round and round the gyrations of fate, that led me to him. Willow tassels are swept away and dance upon the water” (Scene 4). The words ‘wheel’ ‘swept away’ ‘water’ are used as a metaphor for her sorrow. She continues to say about how anxiously she pined for her long absent husband: “I wait for the full moon. I wait for him to visit me” (Scene 4). The forlornness embedded in the words by the Old Man’s Wife resonates with what the Old Man remembers about her life. He looks back on the past with regret, and feels sorry for a desperate situation that he enforced upon his Wife. This much delayed understanding of her isolation comes to him only after he is abandoned by his own Daughter. As Anril Pineda Tiatco mentions, the Old Man’s Wife is characterized as “an alter ego” of the Old Man and “both a separate being and part of himself” (534).
The appearance of the Old Man’s Wife is preceded by the Mother. According to the stage direction written in the production script, the Mother’s entrance “changes the atmosphere before the Old Man’s Wife arrives” (Scene 4). The Mother sings in the vocal style of Jeongga: “Willows become threads, a nightingale spins” (Scene 4). Her song serves as an introductory remark, implying that the Old Man’s Wife spent all those lonely nights spinning thread. After the Wife enters and acts her part, the Mother gives a brief summary of who the Wife was: “She was a thread spinner. She lived in shadow until she died. His wife who never became queen. Only the King’s blood flows in their veins” (Scene 4). The deep sound of Jeongga is effective in revealing and recalling the identity of the Wife. According to Tan’s account, Kang’s “affect-laden” vocality is perfectly suited to “create intense emotion and conjure the haunting and evocative atmosphere of the netherworld” (150).
The Mother’s voice speaks for the Old Man’s Wife, and connects her to the recollection of her family. But the Daughter is emphatically opposed to the memories, and determines to extirpate whatever is related to her past associations. She gives the order to execute her sister “Kill her, kill the memories!” (Scene 10) and send her body to her father so as to manifest enmity. In this scene the three women characters, that is, the Mother, the Old Man’s Wife, and the Daughter are all together on the stage responding to the impending death of the younger daughter. The lyrics of the Mother’s song begin and end with “Human beings departing” (Scene 10). The sound of the vibrating string of pipa grows in intensity when she gives the command to put her sister to death. Then the Old Man’s Wife enters hurriedly, and is furious at the Daughter’s harsh decision but unable to express her anger in words. On behalf of the Wife the Mother continues to sing with a lamenting tone of voice. Along with the Mother the mournful sound of live electronic music fills the stage.
The Old Man decides to end it all, as he faces the death of his younger daughter. Before taking his own life he feels a longing for his Wife: “My wife . . . where are you?” (Scene 12). The Mother answers that his Wife and his younger daughter are leaving this world for the next world: “Farewell. My darling and I are departing, I won’t ask my darling to stay. I will be happy when my darling comes back” (Scene 12). Then the Old Man gives his own sword to the Mother to hold, and runs on it. His act of suicide is a most compelling, and can be compared to what Jeremy D. Knapp means by “the spectre of freedom-in-death” (518). At the moment when the Old Man is stabbed to death, the Mother stops singing and leaves the stage. This scene highlights the image of the Mother who guides her children to cross over into the land of the dead, and find eternal rest. Her departure is symbolic of the fulfillment of her motherly role.
Regarding the death of the Old Man, Ong intends to show “a man caught at the crossroads of history” and “the tragedy of a human being” (Peterson, “Being Affected” 172). The minimal use of words or lyrics is designed to demonstrate complex human nature. Graphic design and green laser beams are employed to attain a measure of minimalism. In the scene when the Daughter usurps the throne from her father and humiliates him by calling “an old man forsaken by your daughter” (Scene 5), the graphic design featuring Chinese characters is projected on the back of the stage. Each Chinese character has a meaning such as father, murder, sleep, dream, return, king, master, life, death, and power. Their meanings are indicative of how the situation is developing and changing. In the scene when the Daughter gives order to blind the Loyal Attendant’s eyes, Chinese characters designed for graphics have such meanings as eye, record, oblivion, old age, and black. They are illustrative of the pain and suffering the Loyal Attendant undergoes.
Green laser beams have tremendous impacts on creating the most heart-rendering scene in the production: the Old Man carries a long white cloth that symbolizes the body of his younger daughter. He gently lays the cloth on the ground, then picks up and shakes it violently, then wraps it around his body, and dances angrily. The Old Man’s bodily movements are expressive of his totally shattered hope of the father and daughter reunion. He is utterly bereft so that he cannot articulate his grief in words. The greenness of laser beams draws attention to the depth of anguish to that Old Man’s remorse drives himself. Its green illumination captures his image as a forlorn man who has no sense of security and belonging. Green laser beams, together with graphic design, work as the stage device to integrate the Old Man into the emotional and moral realm of human nature.
To achieve Asian diversity on Shakespearean stage does not mean to blend and juxtapose various performance styles. It lends themselves to affecting each other, thereby facilitating encounters between East Asian and Southeast Asian cultural spheres. Encompassing a range of theatre forms is in the nature of crossing, mediating, and transforming. In those terms
The production of
In this sense encounters between East Asian and Southeast Asian performers and artists have much to do with what they bring to Shakespeare as well as what Shakespeare means to contemporary Asians. They feature Asian despotic monarchy as a counterpart to Shakespearean patriarchal dukedom of Venice and kingdom of Britain. They draw attention to the mothers who are absent from Shakespeare’s originals, and observe that their absence is what lies behind the character’s downfall. The notion of who is missing in