ABSTRACT
Shakespeare is perhaps the world’s greatest chameleon; he seems to be able to take on the shades of whatever location in which he is positioned. He has crossed over into almost all cultures of the world so that it is a truism to say that he is the most global and globalized author today. But even as we celebrate (the Globe to Globe Festival, 2012) and deliberate it too (qua this volume), and even though adaptation and appropriation are now being accepted as “fundamental to the practice and … enjoyment of literature” (Sanders 2006: 1), troubling and discomforting implications emerge. In the current widespread appropriation and relocation of Shakespeare’s plays in diverse settings and non-Europhone perspectives, particularly in a world of increasing transnationalities, of re-forming and liquid identities, one is compelled to ask, who is speaking for whom? And in whose voices? What positions do relocations emerge from and who are they directed to? How are they received in media and academic discourse? And is there a variance in receptions in different locations, and how do we account for these divergencies? Answers may be as various as the appropriations, especially as critical discourse is yet to accord all re-writings a level playing field. Hierarchies and differentials persist, interfering in the valuation of re-writings, especially of re-locations of Shakespeare’s plays into non-Anglophone milieus.
