Bollywood Dreams
Saturday, May 3rd by scott malia
Bollywood is the new Kabuki. For directors looking for inspiration from other cultures, India has taken a prominent place in the theatrical works of directors looking to create a multicultural take on classic plays. A new version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream adopts the subcontinent as its setting and features many actors speaking in languages from the part of the world. This kind of approach invites a variety of responses: praise from those who applaud the artists’ broadening of their audiences’ horizons (not to mention their own) and rebukes from those who see such productions as a kind of neo-imperialist appropriation of other cultures.
In an interview, the director of this production, noted how misconceived many productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are. Among his laments were the passionless portrayal of the young lovers and lip-service renderings of the Kings and Queens. For him, the play needs darkness and danger as well as majesty and a real sense of magic. Certainly, he has a point regarding the potential for blueprinting an innocuous paint-by-numbers version of the play. To play devil’s advocate, though, is it not possible that eventually the dark, multicultural approach could get old, too? In ten years, could we be rolling our eyes lamenting yet another Midsummer set in a foreign locale? It seems the core of this play is keeping the love, magic, and mystery vital and urgent. If that works, then so will any artistic concept a production applies to it.
