“In the spicèd Indian air by night”: performing Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Postmillennial Kerala

Buckley, Thea Anandam (2017). “In the spicèd Indian air by night”: performing Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Postmillennial Kerala. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the twenty-first-century intercultural performance of Shakespeare in Kerala, India. The thesis highlights Shakespeare’s function in invigorating local performing arts traditions that navigate tensions between paradigms of former feudalism, post-Independence democracy and capitalist globalisation. Throughout, individual artistic perspectives in interview illustrate local productions of \(Macbeth\) for indigenous Keralan performing art forms, ranging from the two-thousand-year old kutiyattam to contemporary postmodern Malayalam-language drama. My introduction contextualises these hybrid productions in their global, national, and local historiography, exploring intersections of the sacred, supernatural, and secular; postmodernism and rasa theory; intercultural Shakespeares and Keralan performing arts; and Shakespearean works with Indian literary and theatrical traditions from the colonial to the postmillennial era. Chapter One highlights cultural translation, focusing on kutiyattam artist Margi Madhu’s 2011 \(Macbeth\); Chapter Two discusses cultural collaboration, studying kathakali artist Ettumanoor P. Kannan’s \(Macbeth\) \(Cholliyattam\), 2013; Chapter Three considers cultural fusion, profiling Abhinaya Theatre’s experimental local-language production of \(Macbeth\), 2011. In closing, the thesis underscores the importance of giving a voice to Keralan theatre artists on Shakespeare, recognising the hitherto critically unexamined potential for the meeting point of two great dramatic cultural traditions as a forum, underpinned by residual colonial and Communist legacies, for intercultural discourse.

Type of Work:	Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)
Award Type:	Doctorates > Ph.D.
Supervisor(s):	Supervisor(s) Email ORCID Dobson, Michael UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
Licence:
College/Faculty:	Colleges (2008 onwards) > College of Arts & Law
School or Department:	School of English, Drama and American & Canadian Studies, The Shakespeare Institute
Funders:	Other
Other Funders:	Lizz Ketterer Trust, Universitas 21
Subjects:	J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration P Language and Literature > PK Indo-Iranian P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater P Language and Literature > PR English literature
URI:	http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/7148

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