Neighbor News
At EPL: Shakespeare in the Middle East; February 8, 7pm, 1st Floor Community Meeting Room
Dr. Riad Ismat discusses the history of Shakespearean performance in the Middle East and his own experience with Shakespearean productions.
Monday, February 8, 7 pm, 1st Floor Community Meeting Room, Main Library
Hamlet was first performed in Egypt around 1893 as a historical romance in which Hamlet defeats his uncle, and reigns with the Ghost’s blessing. “Culturally transplanted” Shakespeare has a lengthy performance history in the Middle East, especially among the educated elite. Yet how is Shakespeare connecting today to a broader Middle Eastern audience?
Dr. Riad Ismat, Buffett Institute Visiting Scholar, and former Syrian minister of culture is an award winning Syrian short-story writer and author. He was awarded an honorary PhD for his Shakespeare contributions from Greenwich University and has directed Shakespeare for Damascus National Theater and The Academy. His television serial. A Crown of Thorne liberally borrowed themes and characters from such plays as Macbeth, Richard III, Hamlet, King Lear and As You Like It, basing the events of that saga in the Arabian Desert in the pre-Islamic period . Dr. Ismat will examine the history of Shakespearean performance in the Middle East and discuss his own extensive experience with Shakespearean productions. This program is offered in collaboration with Silk Road Rising theatre, and as part of the #DiscoverWill: Illinois Libraries Celebrate Shakespeare’s First Folio program series. Register online or by calling 847-448-8620.
