Opening of first "soliloquy" in Tanyus 'Abdu's Hamlet, 1901

أبتي أين أنت تنظر ما تم            صار عرصاً ذاك الذي كان مأتم

وغدت بعدك المآتم اعياداً           وذاك الثغر الحزين تبسم.

Why are the publishers having so much trouble getting this quotation to appear correctly in Arabic in the forthcoming issue of Shakespeare Studies?  Right-to-left issues are a pain.  My article on 'Abdu will be in Shakespeare Studies Vol. 39, accessible via full-text humanities search engines as well as Google Books and the like.

Shakespeare... at a Damascus bus stop

One might not think there would be time for theatre in Damascus these days, let alone Shakespeare, but apparently the Bard makes a cameo (along with some of his characters including Othello and Juliet) in an absurdist play being staged tonight and tomorrow at the Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts in Damascus.  Read more here (in Arabic).  The rhyming title might be translated "The Position of Ezbekia on the Crisis of Drama."  Not very easy to tell from this (unfavorable) review what the show was about, except that it made a perhaps awkward effort to integrate references to current events including random arrests, conversations between ghosts, etc.

Global Shakespeares electronic archive

I spent yesterday over at MIT working with Belinda Yung on the Arab world section of the  "Global Shakespeares electronic archive.  I'm the "regional editor."  We've already put up skeletal production info on a few Arab productions and adaptations of Shakespeare - you can expect a lot more in a week or two, including extensive clips from Mohamed Sobhi (محمد صبحي)'s melodramatic 1970s Hamlet production with the Art Studio company. 

If you have text or video materials on more plays, please send them to me so we can get them posted!

Trailer: Richard III: An Arab VIP

When I saw Sulayman Al-Bassam at the Kennedy Center in March 2009, there was a documentary film crew hanging around. Their presence was just another comic detail in the backstage buzz: technical glitches, dressing-room jokes, a bit part Sulayman had to play because a Kuwaiti cast member couldn't get excused from his day job as a Ministry of Education employee even though Kuwait's government had given $1 million as sponsors of the Arabesque festival, etc. etc.  So then there were these random guys with movie cameras.  Anyway, here's the lovely trailer for the film they've made (I've already posted one review):

ٌRichard III coming to Kurdistan

Update (in Arabic) on 66-year-old Iraqi director Salah al-Qasab's plans (which I've mentioned before) to stage Richard III with Kurdish actors in Sulymaniya, Kurdistan. Funded by the Kurdish region's Ministry of Youth and Sports. Hmm, wonder what this one will be about?

Review of documentary on Al-Bassam's Richard III

Layla Ahmad's review (in Arabic) of the documentary Richard III: An Arab VIP says the film is "worth watching."

Shakespeare for the blind in Lebanon

Can anyone help with this most worthy query from the leaders of Empowerment through Integration, Inc., an NGO that works with the blind  (http://www.eti-vision.org/)?

This summer we are running day camps for blind kids ages 6-16 in Beirut and Tripoli, Lebanon. As part of our curriculum, we are having the kids rehearse and perform some short plays and a puppet theater.


I would like to have the older kids "watch" an Arabic-language version of a Shakespearean play.
Do you by any chance have video recordings of theater productions that would be suitable for a young audience? I need the media itself (i.e. DVD) in order to show it.

Please send any leads to me or, better, contact the organization directly.