- The Winter’s Tale (in Yoruba), and: The Taming of the Shrew (in Urdu), and: Antony and Cleopatra (in Turkish)
How global is Shakespeare? From April to June, 2012, in the spirit of the impending London Olympics, the Globe Theatre held a festival of 37 Shakespeare plays in 37 different languages (including American hip hop and British sign language), presented by companies from around the world. Of the three reviewed here, the most inventive was The Winter’s Tale in classical Yoruba.
Actors from Nigeria had to speak this language, as unfamiliar to them as Shakespeare’s tongue to modern English speakers, while performing a script that rearranged the bard’s plot and changed the characters’ names to resonate with Yoruba myths. The show began midway through the original, with a female Time singing from the balcony over the stage, while men drummed below and Antigonus left the baby Perdita to her [End Page 137] fate. A robber attacked, rather than a bear, dragging him off. The Old Shepherd and Clown found the baby, and its gift bag, which the robber missed, but they feared more robbers were in the audience, especially among the groundlings in the pit.
Several men then entered through the pit, carrying a deer carcass. They danced around it onstage, as triumphant hunters, with King Polixenes as their leader. But he was also the Yoruba orisa, Ogun, god of metalworking—and shook his rifle to display his power. The play then continued with the story of Polixenes/Ogun, a royal father who disguises himself as an elderly commoner to catch his son, Florizel, after he escaped his duties to marry a shepherd’s daughter, Perdita.
Autolycus also appeared as a trickster figure (like the Yoruba god, Esu), stealing the purse of the Clown, while whining about being robbed himself. Played by a young actress, he took on an androgynous, chameleon-like quality. With his sudden increase in wealth, he changed into a leather vest and pants. Globe spectators were also brought onstage to celebrate his mischievousness with a dance. This communal joy at the expense of a Clown, however, changed to fear when Polixenes/Ogun, disguised as a whining old man with a cane, discovered his son’s deception. Ogun, in his symbolic blue shirt, erupted from the old man’s cloak, raging with his rifle and nearly beating Florizel on the head with its butt. (Camillo had to restrain him.) Ogun also picked up the Old Shepherd and turned his trembling body horizontally. He then grabbed Perdita tightly by the hair, forbidding her to meet with Florizel again, before storming off. In a prelude to the show’s final twist, Perdita rose and slapped Florizel for bringing such disgrace upon...