Introduction | Documentation|
Images|
Music
| Specifications
| Opinion
| Contact|
|||
BBC
ONLINE 
Tuesday, 20 August, 2002, 10:40 GMT 11:40 UK
Hamlet gets Middle Eastern makeover
The family feud take place in a Middle Eastern summit.
Shakespeare meets the Middle East in an imaginative and topical remake
of Hamlet by the Anglo-Kuwaiti director Sulayman Al-Bassam.
The Al-Hamlet Summit, set in a Middle Eastern country riven with war
and corruption, deservedly won a Fringe First Award last week.
Although the names are familiar from the Shakespearean version, the
setting is decidedly 21st Century.
Hamlet, the aggrieved son of the deceased king who has just been succeeded
by his westernised despot of a brother, Claudius, descends to bitterness
and religious extremism in his attempt to gain the crown.
Unnerving
The family feud is played out against the backdrop of a country wracked
by a devastating war as well as domestic insurrection.
Al-Bassam's play is a brave attempt to bring one of Shakespeare's darkest
and most unnerving plays into a modern context.
Extracts of Shakespearean verse are interspersed with chilling background
images of burning oil fields, and whether by accident or design, its
Middle Eastern setting makes it one of the most topical plays on this
year's Fringe circuit.
Internet address of this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/reviews/2193375.stm
