Kemel Aydogan’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Turkey. Credit: Mehmet Çakici
Hitler was a Shakespeare fan; Stalin feared Hamlet; Othello broke ground in apartheid-era South Africa; and Brazil’s current political crisis can be reflected by Julius Caesar. Across the world different Shakespearean plays have different significance and power. The latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, a Shakespeare special to mark the 400th anniversary of his death, takes a global look at the playwright’s influence, explores how censors have dealt with his works and also how performances have been used to tackle subjects that might otherwise have been off limits. Below some of our writers talk about some of the most controversial performances and their consequences.
Kaya Genç on A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream in Turkey
“When Turkish poet Can Yücel translated A Midsummer’s Night Dream, he saw the potential to reflect Turkey’s authoritarian climate in a way that would pass under the radar of the military intelligence’s hardworking censors. Like lovers in Shakespeare’s comedy who are tricked by fairies into falling in love with characters they actually dislike, his adaptation [which was staged in 1981 and led to the arrests of many of the actors] drew on the idea that Turkey’s people were forced by the state to love the authority figures that oppressed them the most. They were subjugated by the military patriarchy, the same way the play’s female and artisan characters were subjugated by Athenian patriarchy.
Kemal Aydoğan, the director of the latest Turkish adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, described the work as ‘one of the most political plays ever written’. For Aydoğan, the scene in which the Amazonian queen Hippolyta is subjugated and taken hostage by the Theseus marks a turning point in the play. ‘That Hermia is not allowed to marry the man she loves but has to wed the man assigned to her by her father is another sign of women’s subjugation by men,’ he said. This, according to Aydoğan, is sadly familiar terrain for Turkey where women are frequently told by male politicians to know their place, keep silent and do as they are told.’ ”
Claire Rigby on Julius Caesar in Brazil
“In a Brazil seething with political intrigue, in which the impeachment proceedings currently facing President Dilma Rousseff are just the most visible tip of a profound turbulence which has gripped the country since her re-election in October 2014, director Roberto Alvim’s 2015 adaptation of Julius Caesar was inspired by a televised presidential debate he saw in the final days of the election campaign, in which centre-left Rousseff faced off against her centre-right opponent Aécio Neves. ‘I watched the debate as it became utterly polarised between Dilma and Aécio, and the famous clash between Mark Antony and Brutus instantly came to mind,’ he said. ‘It was the idea that the same facts can be drawn in such completely different ways by the power of speech: the power of the word to reframe the facts, and its central importance in the political game.’ ”
György Spiró on Richard III in Hungary
“Richard III was staged in Kaposvár, which had Hungary’s very best theatre at the time. This was 1982.
Charges were brought against the production, because the Earl of Richmond wore dark glasses. A few weeks earlier, on 13 December 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state of emergency in Poland. For health reasons he wore sunglasses every time he appeared in public.”
Simon Callow on Hamlet under Stalin and the Nazis
“In 1941, Joseph Stalin banned Hamlet. The historian Arthur Mendel wrote: ‘The very idea of showing on the stage a thoughtful, reflective hero who took nothing on faith, who intently scrutinized the life around him in an effort to discover for himself, without outside ‘prompting,’ the reasons for its defects, separating truth from falsehood, the very idea seemed almost ‘criminal’.’ Having Hamlet suppressed must have been a nasty shock for Russians: at least since the times of novelist and short story writer Ivan Turgenev, the Danish Prince had been identified with the Russian soul. Ten years earlier, Adolf Hitler had claimed the play as quintessentially Aryan, and described Nazi Germany as resembling Elizabethan England, in its youthfulness and vitality (unlike the allegedly decadent and moribund British Empire). In his Germany, Hamlet was reimagined as a proto-German warrior. Only weeks after Hitler took power in 1933 an official party publication appeared titled Shakespeare – A Germanic Writer.”
Natasha Joseph on Othello in South Africa
“In 1987, actress and director Janet Suzman decided to stage Othello in her native South Africa, bringing ‘the moor of Venice’ to life at Johannesburg’s iconic Market Theatre. It was just two years since Prime Minister PW Botha had repealed one of apartheid’s most reviled laws, the Immorality Act, which banned sexual relationships between people of different races. Even without the legislation, many white South Africans baulked at the idea of interracial desire. No wonder, then, that Suzman’s production attracted what she has described as ‘millions of bags full of hate letters from people who thought that this was an outrage’.
But in a country famous for sweeping censorship and restrictions on freedom of movement, speech and association, the play was not banned. Why? Because the apartheid government ‘would have been the laughing stock of the world if they had banned Shakespeare’, Suzman told Index on Censorship. ‘Any government would be really embarrassed to ban Shakespeare. The apartheid government was frightened of ridicule. Everyone is frightened of laughter.’ ”
For more articles on Shakespeare’s battle with power around the world, see our latest magazine. Order your copy here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions (just £18 for the year, with a free trial). Copies are also available in excellent bookshops including at the BFI, Mag Culture and Serpentine Gallery (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester) and on Amazon or a digital magazine on exacteditions.com. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide.
Presenting the world premiere of a collection of 12 explosive political five minute plays by writers including Mark Ravenhill, Neil LaBute and Caryl Churchill.
Arising from events and decisions relating to The Underbelly and Incubator Theatre’s The City, Exhibit B and the Barbican, and The Tricycle Theatre.
Each performance will include all twelve five minute plays and a lively post-show discussion exploring freedom of expression in UK arts today. Engage in discussion with the commissioned writers and a range of free expression advocates .
The post-show debate on on Friday 30th January will feature Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
WHERE: Theatre Delicatessen, London, EC1R 3ER WHEN: Monday 26th – Saturday 31st January, 7:30pm & Sat Matinee TICKETS: £15 / £12 – available here
This event is produced by Offstage Theatre, in association with Theatre Uncut, and supported by Index on Censorship and Free Word.
Should there ever be censorship of the arts was the subject of an Index/Bush Theatre debate, held last night. The event was provoked by the cancellation of Exhibit B in London, and Israeli play The City at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe as well as controversy around this year’s Jewish Film Festival, all in the past few months.
Taking part in the debate were, among others: Stella Odunlami, artist and a cast member of Exhibit B; Zita Holbourne, artist, activist and co-organiser of the campaign to boycott the show; and Arik Eshet, artistic director of Incubator Theatre, which produced The City.
An Exhibit B performer Stella Odunlami told the audience: “We, a group of intelligent and informed actors and performers, have been censored and silenced by protestors, who truly have an ill-informed and misguided perspective of this significant and informative piece of work.
We are appalled, outraged, angry…extremely angry as artists, as human beings. We cannot believe that this is London in 2014. We are appalled that Exhibit B has been cancelled because of the actions of some of the demonstrators.”
Protester Zita Holbourne put her point of view as a poem, she said: “We said to them, Barbican please take that down, 2014 and you want to put black people in a cage? Then telling us you don’t understand our outrage!”
Read their full statements, made to the audience, below.
Stella Odunlami read the statement from the London cast of Exhibit B
It is with utter disappointment that we write these words.
Exhibit B is an important work that has given us an education into the lives of other human beings. We believe everybody has the right to their specific story being told, and this work provided that platform, through the medium of art – living and breathing. It is a shame that these stories will no longer be heard, seen, nor felt. An even greater shame that those who were open and brave enough to purchase a ticket, have now been robbed of that experience.
Exhibit B afforded us the opportunity to explore and engage with our past, while reminding and reawakening us to its impact on the present.
To the 23,000 petitioners who complained that Exhibit B objectified human beings – you missed the point.
This is the 21st Century and we believe that everyone has a choice, a right, an entitlement, to do or say whatever they deem to be right for them. We can accept someone seeing the piece and not liking it-that’s fine. What we cannot accept about the events of Tuesday evening and the subsequent cancellation of Exhibit B, is the physical action that was taken outside of the Vaults, by a minority of the demonstrators who would not even entertain the thought of seeing the piece.
We, a group of intelligent and informed actors and performers, have been censored and silenced by protestors, who truly have an ill-informed and misguided perspective of this significant and informative piece of work.
We are appalled, outraged, angry…extremely angry as artists, as human beings. We cannot believe that this is London in 2014. We are appalled that Exhibit B has been cancelled because of the actions of some of the demonstrators.
We are artists who, after thoughtful and careful deliberation, decide what projects we want to work on. Grown men and women who decided that our contribution to Exhibit B would be worthwhile and important. Who, on Tuesday, were told, by way of the protestor’s force, that we couldn’t make creative and life decisions for ourselves.
That complete strangers knew what was best for us.
For all of us.
Our voices and ideas were deemed not worthy of being shared with the world. This is exactly what Exhibit B is about: we want to denounce oppression, racism and bigotry. We want to denounce actions like this. And the fact that this is still happening in London in 2014, proves even more why this piece is necessary.
The anger and vitriol and hysteria which the protestors have and continue to level at the company of Exhibit B, astounds us.
It doesn’t feel rational. It doesn’ t feel measured. There simply has not been room for an exchange of ideas.
There’s such vulnerability in holding a mirror up to humanity. No one wants to see a representation of themselves oppressed, but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look.
We welcome protest, but surely it’s best to have as much information beforehand, so your opinion is truly informed. Surely as a protestor, you have a duty to ensure your ‘peaceful protest’ really is peaceful. And, surely your right to protest should not impact another person’s freedom of thought and speech.
We are actors and performers who believe that art should be meaningful. Challenging. Provoking.
Not only for us, as participating collaborators in the work, but also for the audience who witness the work.
This project afforded us the opportunity to be the most vulnerable, most on display, silently engaging and being engaged, while exploring themes around other, sex, race, and gender.
Exhibit B was created with love and sensitivity. We are intelligent creatives who made a brave choice to be part of a thought provoking piece of work. As Londoners, we are embarrassed that this has happened in our city, as the show has already been seen by 25,000 people from all over the world, and will continue to tour.
We would like to thank the Barbican for their immense support and Brett Bailey for his inspired work.
Zita Holbourne read Prejudice, Privilege, Power: A Poem for the Barbican (listen to it here)
Barbican announced a human zoo in town
We said to them, Barbican please take that down
2014 and you want to put black people in a cage?
Then telling us you don’t understand our outrage!
Strapped to plane seats, placed in iron masks
And nobody in a whole arts institution thought to ask
Our views before taking a decision to host
Then you have the bare faced audacity to boast
That you’ve placed black people in a human zoo
Going around talking about the good it can do
In challenging racist attitudes and views
But to listen to our concerns you refuse
Shackles and cages at £20 per ticket
But you don’t get why we organised a picket
We don’t need to see a black woman shackled to a bed
To know that racism is rearing its ugly head
We’re forced to battle daily with modern day enslavement
Power and privilege versus our self-empowerment
You are arrogant telling those of us that live with racism every day
What is or is not racist, like we don’t have a say
Let’s make clear that a boycott campaign is not censorship
For your actions and failures you must take ownership
We don’t need a lecture on what it is to be banned
We’re treated like third class citizens in this land
Blocked by institutions, so take a moment, pause
Think about the anger and pain you cause
By insulting our ancestors, our histories
Adding insult to our multiple injuries
If anything is censored it’s the art we produce
Rejected repeatedly by art institutions that refuse
To acknowledge our stories told by us through art
We’ve never had a level playing field from the start
We have a legitimate right to protest
It’s disingenuous of you to suggest
That our demonstration was aggressive
When it was simply passionate and expressive
Using the very arts that you claim to stand for
To demonstrate our strength of feeling outside the door
We made music, danced, lifted our voices in song
Displayed placards that had our beautiful art on
Yet you state that we were extreme and threatening
In contrast, press there say we were peaceful and welcoming
Police confirm there was no damage, injury or arrest
So perhaps it’s you trying to censor our right to protest
Their singing was threatening is what the headlines say
Brandishing placards and drums that barred the way
You accuse us of blocking freedom of expression
But then you call our expression aggression!
What does this say about you as a leading arts institution?
When you resort to this vicious persecution
Barbican you are cowardly and insincere
Resorting to this malicious smear
You simply confirm what we said from the start
You are defending racism in the name of art
When prejudice, privilege and power are combined
Institutional racism becomes clearly defined.
Arik Eshet, Artistic Director of Incubator Theatre, spoke via Skype about the cancellation of The City at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Tunisian rapper Alaa Yacoub has been sent two prison for two years for an anti-police song. Sara Yasin reports
The rapper, who performs under the name Weld 15, has been accused of threatening police officers with a song he posted online called Boulicia Kleb (the police are dogs).
Yacoub was in hiding when he was initially sentenced to two years in prison in March. The rapper came out of hiding for his one-day retrial earlier this month in Tunis, in the hopes that he would receive a more relaxed sentence for turning himself in,according to the BBC.
In the video, Yacoub sings that “he would like to slaughter a police officer instead of sheep at Eid al-Adha”. In response to accusations that he was “inciting violence against the police”, Yacoub told Nawaat in March that he was “subject to all forms of police violence: physical and verbal. As an artist, I can only answer them through my art: aggressive art.”
The charges brought against Yacoub were brought under “anti-free speech laws inherited from the dictatorship era”, according to Index contributor Afef Abrougi. Anyone violating Article 128 of Tunisia’s Penal Code could face up to two years in prison for “accusing without proof a public official.”
