“To be, or not to be”: On a stage in Yemen, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet rings out in Arabic, a tragedy that resonates with an audience who has endured years of civil war.
In the government-controlled city of Aden, battered by the conflict, the first performance of a Shakespeare play in many years has resurrected hopes of a cultural revival.
“We are hungry for these kinds of events,” said Heba al-Bakri, watching one of a sold-out run of 10 shows. “Our people are always distressed and exhausted, so we need this kind of entertainment.”
Photo: AFP
As the actors took their bows, applause roared out and the audience rose for a standing ovation.
The savage bloodshed, murder, revenge, power struggles and moral dilemmas told in the famous tragedy by the English playwright were written more than 400 years ago — but on stage in Yemen today, the play holds power.
Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, has been at war since 2014 when Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sana’a, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene the following year.
The country has been left in ruins, hundreds of thousands of people have died, and many more have been pushed to the brink of famine.
Director Amr Gamal, founder of the Khaleej Aden Theatre Troupe, said he feared there might have been only “limited interest,” but is now planning a second round of shows after its success.
The three-hour performance has gripped the audience.
“They do not leave the room before the play ends,” said Gamal, who also directed the feature film Ten Days Before the Wedding, a love story which Yemen named as their official submission to the 2018 Oscars.
Renowned for its rich cultural heritage, Yemen has a long history of performing Shakespeare in Arabic dating back over a century.
In this version, Hamlet was translated first into classical Arabic and then into Aden’s dialect to provide it with a unique Yemeni twist.
Including characters wearing traditional Yemeni dress, it has turned a centuries-old tale into a platform to reflect on the troubled times in the country today.
“It is an old dream realized after years of work,” said assistant director Marwan Mafraq, adding that the “lack of resources” in Yemen had led to a “very tight space” for artistic production.
Backed by the British Council, a cultural and educational organization, the play is being performed in a former government building dating to when the southern port city was a British colony.
For the past two years, the cast in Aden received support via videolink from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London and the Volcano Theatre in Wales.
The British Council said the Hamlet production showed its commitment to “building the capacity of young Yemenis to creatively express themselves.”
Putting on the play posed not only logistical challenges.
Nour Zaker, who plays the tragic character of Ophelia, said she had to learn a challenging role on stage and overcome social taboos against female actors in the conservative country.
“I faced many difficulties as a woman in Aden,” she said.
“My family did not object, but it was difficult because ... society does not easily accept these things,” she added.
Her audience — which included women wearing the face-covering niqab veil, common in Yemen — were receptive.
For those watching and those on stage, the hope is that Hamlet might help start a wider revival.
“As artists, we always have the hope that there will be great cultural productions, theatrical or cinematographic, which highlight Yemeni culture,” said actor Omar Majalad, who plays Hamlet’s friend Guildenstern.
“We hope that there will be more attention given to art and music,” university student Fadi Abdulmalik said, after watching a performance. “This will sow love and peace in Yemen.”
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
RSS