Seeking video of Arab/ic Shakespeare performances

The Global Shakespeares web archive at MIT has gone live -- with virtually no content on its Arab World section. There's only my placeholder introduction. 
Yalla! Let's send our archivist friends some video to include in the site.  Any leads can be sent to me or to Prof. Peter Donaldson, the site's editor-in-chief.

Textual fundamentalists angry at Hani Afifi for postmodern adaptation

This unknown (to me) reviewer accuses the young adaptor/director Hani Afifi of "betraying Shakespeare's text," which the review (in Arabic) describes as "sacred."  Afifi's I Am Hamlet is winning all kinds of prizes, including Best Actor at the 2009 CIFET.

No Othello in Tangiers

I should clarify that there has been a funny linguistic misunderstanding. Back in June, while I was in Morocco, I misread "Hotel Tanja" as "Otayl Tanja," i.e., Othello -- which is easy to do, because the two are spelled identically, and because I had forgotten that Moroccans use the French word hotel instead of the classical Arabic word funduq. I was further misled by one of the plays in the volume being called Zanqat Shaksbir -- Shakespeare Street. Which turns out to be about a real street in Tangiers, with a plot very vaguely reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet but too far to be considered a Shakespeare adaptation. My friend Khalid Amine, head of the International Center for Performance Studies in Tangier set me straight. Consider it a lesson in di- or tri-glossia.

Othello from Tangiers

Greetings from Morocco. This is the cover of a new book (apparently) titled Othello of Tangiers. By Tangiers-based writer Zoubeir Ben Bouchta.

More details soon, inshallah.

Twelfth Night in Damascus

I just came across the Damascus Shakespeare Festival, and apparently it aspires to be annual. However, this year's performance of Twelfth Night by the Birmingham Theatre troupe (visiting from England) seems to have left the Syrian audience cold. The review quotes a Syrian actress named Yara Sabri wishing the show had had more music and dancing etc. to "contribute to the arts education" of a less elite audience. No surprise there. If ever there were a problematic play for cross-cultural presentation, surely Twelfth Night must be it.

TV report on Shakespeare festival in Damascus

TV report here (in Arabic) on recent Shakespeare Festival held in Damascus, including Birmingham Theatre's performance of Twelfth Night.

Omar Sharif to play King Lear

From Playbill.com...
Sounds wonderful. But how will they avoid allegories about sitting Egyptian presidents??

Sharif Will Star in Egyptian Film Inspired by King Lear
By Kenneth Jones
February 11, 2010
Omar Sharif, the Egyptian-born Oscar-nominated actor of Arab and French descent, will play the tragic patriarch in a film adaptation that places Shakespeare's King Lear in the modern Middle East.Variety reported that the 77-year-old actor — who starred in "Lawrence of Arabia" (for which he got an Academy Award nomination), "Funny Girl" and "Dr. Zhivago" — will play Lear, which is to be set in Egypt.
Egyptian writer Khaled Al Khamissi, who wrote the novel "Taxi," an international bestseller, will write the screenplay.
The film is being developed and produced by Frederic Sichler's Amana Creative, who was once CEO of France's StudioCanal.
Sichler is co-producing "King Lear" with Egypt's Misr Intl. and perhaps Egypt National Broadcast Corp.
"Shakespeare is an icon of European culture, Al Khamissi represents the best of a new generation of Arab writers, and Omar Sharif has been a bridge between our two worlds for half a century," producer Sichler said.
A director will be announced; shooting should begin by late 2010.
King Lear is the famed Shakespeare tragedy of an aging king who decides to divide his domain in three, among his daughters. When he denies his good daughter her share, it becomes his — and his kingdom's — undoing.