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This article is a case study examining the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Chinese translation of Hamlet, which is part of its “Shakespeare Folio Translation Project” that was launched in 2015. Textual interpolations and alterations of the plot in this version are demonstrated, ranging from cuts of critical scenes and roles to lines and single words rendered in an “audience-friendly” way into an alleged Chinese context. Based on an analysis of the translator’s edits, textual transpositions, and choices of Chinese wording, this paper recognizes this version’s contribution to the diversity and acculturation of Shakespeare for a special intellectual community in a different culture in twenty-first-century China. Nevertheless, it proposes that this edition be more accurately entitled “RSC Hamlet for the Chinese Stage” rather than the officially designated “RSC Chinese Folio Hamlet” in order to avoid possible misconceptions of “acknowledged authority” that Chinese readers and audience may conceive under the halo of RSC and the misleading label of “Commissioned Folio Translation.”

One of the reasons why Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as a play representing the essential problematics of Western Modernity, is still relevant today, is that it contains the cultural dynamics that ranges over issues around colonialism, patriarchy, and individual identities, all of which have been causes and consequences of the Western Modernity. More specifically, in the current context of the declining Western hegemony, symbolized by regional military conflicts and environmental degradation, among other crises, the urgency to freshly produce and interpret this play seems to be increasing. This essay attempts to question the significance of staging Hamlet today by examining Satoshi Miyagi’s version of the play at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and through its analysis, we aim to reflect how Hamlet, while characterizing Western Modernity, harbors the potential to critique its essence.

This essay examines some notable Shakespearean productions and adaptations in Japan from 2020 to 2023. The main focus is on a Hamlet production by Mansai Nomura, a Kyogen performer, in March 2023; it was an amalgamation of the traditional Japanese theatres, such as Kyogen, Nô, Kabuki, and Bunraku. Mansai’s aspiration to produce Hamlet, utilizing all the elements of traditional Japanese art forms, began twenty years ago, when he played Hamlet in Jonathan Kent’s production in London and in Tokyo. He re-examined the text and offered a completely new interpretation of a scene, giving the play a fresh dimension. Moreover, this essay examines other recent Shakespeare productions and adaptations, including my two new plays based on Shakespeare, as well as Kôki Mitani’s Thirteen Vassals of Kamakura Shogun, a serial historical TV drama, broadcast by NHK (Japan’s version of the BBC).

This research paper examines the experimental nature of appropriation focusing on The National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA) renditions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603) and Richard III (1597). It investigates how these adaptations bring about changes in both dramatic structure and artistic expression, dissecting visual and performative elements to uncover diverse meanings within live performances. The research delves into how NAPA’s creative choices offer new ways to examine Shakespeare’s universal themes—jealousy, incest, ambition, and hatred— through unconventional theatrical presentations, viewed from a post-dramatic perspective. Using Hans Thies Lehmann’s Post-dramatic theory (1960), it analyses alterations dramaturgical and aesthetical presentation such as plot construction, sign and symbol presentations. By bridging the gap between the art world and stagecraft, this study aims to deepen our understanding of how appropriation, aesthetics, and performance intersect. It also explores how these adaptations contribute to the global presentation of Shakespearean plays, offering insights from Pakistan’s theatrical landscape.

Il s’agit de tracer l’influence de François de Belleforest sur William Shakespeare à travers le personnage de Gertrude (nommé « Geruthe » chez Belleforest) dans la pièce Hamlet. S’appuyant sur la légende danoise originale de Saxo Grammaticus (Historia Danica), c’est Belleforest dans les Histoires tragiques qui donne une voix à celle qui est à la fois mère du protagoniste (se nommant « Amleth » chez Belleforest) et reine du Danemark. Par la suite, Shakespeare élabore et approfondit le portrait de Gertrude. S’inspirant largement de l’exemple de Belleforest, le dramaturge élisabéthain met en valeur la rupture psychologique entre Hamlet et sa mère, soulignant surtout l’évolution de leur rapport qui passe du conflit à la réconciliation au cours de la tragédie. La représentation belleforestienne de Geruthe comprend aussi son rôle ambigu dans les nombreux complots du roi contre Amleth. Ces manigances sont adaptées par Shakespeare pour augmenter la tension du drame et pour faire de Gertrude elle-même un personnage tragique.

In this paper I endeavour to retell a partial history of the Hungarian translation of Hamlet’s commentary: “This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King!” (3:2:239) on the “Murder of Gonzago,” aiming to elucidate the intricate interplay between translation, cultural discourse, and socio-political dynamics. Hamlet’s commentary, seemingly straightforward yet laden with complexity, poses implications capable of reshaping the trajectory and purpose of his theatrical experiment, crafted to probe and establish Claudius’ guilt. The partial history of translations encompasses the epochs of Ferenc Kazinczy (18th century) and János Arany (19th century) up to the modern renderings of István Eörsi and Ádám Nádasdy (20th-21st centuries). Within this framework, I claim that exploring these translations of Hamlet’s commentary offers a gauge of Hamlet’s position in Hungarian cultural discourse. The evolving connotations of words, reflective of linguistic shifts, imbue layered meanings not only onto the statement itself but also onto the theatrical experiment it encapsulates. This exploration of translation, interpretation, and linguistic evolution sheds light on Shakespeare’s and Hamlet’s socio-cultural-political role in Hungary, as translations serve not merely as transparent channels of meaning but also as reflections on the political and cultural commitments of translators and their audiences.

The paper focuses on five Czech productions of Hamlet that attracted the most critical and public attention between 2000 and 2023. Namely, the productions directed by Miroslav Krobot (2006), Jan Mikulášek (2009), Daniela Špinar (2013), Michal Dočekal (2021) and finally the most recent version by Jakub Čermák (2022). All five performances could be seen as contemporary reinterpretations of a classical text using a (post-)modern stylistic approach, as examples of post-millennium Hamlets. The paper discusses dramaturgical choices (such as the conceptualisation of the ghost, the mousetrap scene, or the character of Fortinbras) in order to identify and analyse possibilities for interpreting Hamlet as a political drama in the context of Czech performance tradition and the current political situation. The results show that performances generally present variations of Hamlet as a family drama, foregrounding different issues of memory and body, while the political reading is obsolete.

In the series Twin Peaks, Mark Frost, David Lynch and others create a mythological framework structured by and filtered through Shakespeare in a postsecular exploration of the posthuman. Twin Peaks exemplifies a cultural postsecular turn in its treatment of the posthuman, taking the religious and spiritual perspectives to new —and often extreme—heights in its use of Kabbalah and other traditions. Twin Peaks involves spiritual dimensions that tap into other planes of existence in which struggles between benign and destructive entities or forces, multiple universes, and extradimensional, nonhuman spirits question the centrality of the human and radically challenge traditional Western notions of being. Twin Peaks draws from Shakespeare’s expansive imagination to explore these dimensions of reality that include nonhuman entities—demons, angels, and other spirits—existing beyond and outside of fabricated, human-centered worlds, with the dybbuk functioning as the embodiment of the postsecular religious posthuman.

The article deals the possibility of applying Vladimir Propp’s, basically anthropological idea of “the inverted ritual” to the interpretation of certain plays by William Shakespeare, particularly Hamlet. The said inversion concerns three rituals: the sacrificial ritual, where the passive and obedient victim suddenly rebels, or at least becomes difficult to control (which is the case, for example, of Ophelia in Hamlet); of the initiatory ritual, where the apparently benevolent master of the characters initiation is shown as a monster (which can be exemplified by Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle); and of the matrimonial ritual, where the theoretically loving husband (more rarely wife), or lover, is revealed as a highly malicious and unpredictable creature, an example of which can be Hamlet himself. The article makes use of the work of such critics as G.K. Wilson, Harold Bloom, Vladimir Propp, René Girard, and Mircea Eliade.

This is the second of a pair of articles addressing the relationship between Dostoevsky’s novella Notes from the Underground and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The first article considered the similarities between the two texts, using David Magarshack’s 1968 English translation of the Notes, before discussing the wider phenomenon of Hamletism in nineteenth-century Russia. In this article, the author focuses on the problem of translation, identifying a handful of instances in the Magarshack translation that directly ‘insert’ Shakespeare, and Hamlet in particular, into Dostoevsky’s text. It is argued that these allusions or citations overdetermine the English reader’s experience of Shakespeare-and-Dostoevsky, or Shakespeare-in-Dostoevsky. Returning to the question of Shakespeare’s status in Europe in the nineteenth century, the article concludes with a critique of Shakespearean ‘universality’ as it manifests through the nuances of translation.

The digital environment in which the humanities are now firmly immersed has opened the door to innovative ways for students to interact with traditional formats such as archival and print material, and to develop a deep and personal understanding of topics and issues. Libraries, museums and archives are in the unique position of facilitating the creation of digital initiatives in the classroom by offering up their collections as “learning laboratories,” and by sharing their expertise in technology, information, and digital literacy as well as data management. Through active collaboration with course instructors, they can build bridges between their collections and the digital skills students need in order to embrace the new learning paradigm and to help lead them into the future. This paper outlines an archival-digital pilot launched in 2015 at the University of Ottawa, Canada. It situates the project in its historical context; details its early and subsequent iterations; and surveys the assumptions, challenges, surprises, and pleasures of introducing students to archival sources and to acquiring digital skills.

This essay looks at the 2001 Romanian production of Hamlet directed by Vlad Mugur at the Cluj National Theatre (Romania) from the perspective of geocriticism and spatial literary studies, analysing the stage space opened in front of the audiences. While the bare stage suggests asceticism and alienation, the production distances the twenty-first century audiences from what might have seemed difficult to understand from their postmodern perspectives. The production abbreviates the topic to its bare essence, just as a map condenses space, in the form of “literary cartography” (Tally 20). There is no room in this production for baroque ornaments and theatrical flourishing; instead, the production explores the exposed depth of human existence. The production is an exploration of theatre and art, of what dramatists and directors can do with artful language, of the theatre as an exploration of human experience and potential. It is about the human condition and the artist’s place in the world, about old and new, about life and death, while everything happens on the edge of nothingness. The director’s own death before the opening night of the production ties Shakespeare’s Hamlet with existential issues in an even deeper way than the play itself allows us to expose.

This is the first of a pair of articles that consider the relationship between Dostoevsky’s novella Notes from the Underground and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Acknowledging Shakespeare’s well-known influence on Dostoevsky and paying close attention to similarities between the two texts, the author frames the comparison by reflecting on his own initial encounter with Dostoevsky in David Magarshack’s 1968 English translation. A discussion of previous Anglophone scholarly attempts to explore the resonance between the texts leads to a reading of textual echoes (using Magarshack’s translation). The wider phenomenon of Hamletism in the nineteenth century is introduced, complicating Dostoevsky’s national and generational context, and laying the groundwork for the second article—which questions the ‘universalist’ assumptions informing the English translator-reader contract.

This article examines the subjective aesthetic criteria used to assess two Finnish translations of Hamlet, one by Eeva-Liisa Manner (1981) and the other by Matti Rossi (2013), both accomplished translators for the stage. A survey consisting of one general question (“Briefly describe your idea of how Shakespeare translation should sound in Finnish, and what you think are the qualities of a good Shakespeare translation”) and five text extracts was distributed on paper and electronically, generating 50 responses. For the extracts, respondents were asked whether one or the other translation most closely dorresponded to their idea of what a Shakespeare translation should sound like and why, along with questions on whether they would prefer to see or read one or the other. The results show that there are no strong shared expectancy norms in Finland regarding Shakespeare translation. Manner was generally felt to be more concise and poetic, while Rossi was praised for his exquisite use of modern Finnish. Respondents agreed that rhythm was an important criterion, but disagreed on what sorts of rhythms they preferred. Translation of the “to be or not to be” speech raised the most passions, with many strongly preferring Manner’s more traditional translation. The results suggest that Shakespeare scholars would do well to take variations in expectancy norms into account when assessing and analysing Shakespeare in translation.

The aim of this article is to explore the potential of hauntological theories to explain and problematise selected aspects of authority and performance in the context of Shakespeare’s drama. Referring primarily to Derrida’s and Abraham’s concepts of the ghost and the phantom and their connection to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the article discusses hauntological perspectives on performance, both deconstructing and reaffirming authority. The paper comments on the relation between text and performance (Brook, Lehmann), memory and repetition (Carlson), disappearance and perpetual present (Phelan), as well as archive and repertoire (Taylor) in order to highlight the contradictory yet productive ways of understanding performance. The final part of the article, focusing on the significance of the ghost figure, examines experimental appropriations of Shakespeare’s play in Walny Theatre’s Hamlet (2015) in the light of postdramatic aesthetics.

The article presents political interpretations of Hamlet in Poland in the turbulent period of politcal changes between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s. The author discusses the relationships between Shakespeare’s tragedy and Polish political context as well as the influence of audience expectations in the specific interpretations. The selected performances are: Hamlet by Roman Zawistowski (at the Old Theatre in Cracow 1956) and Hamlet Study by Jerzy Grotowski (at the Laboratory Theatre of 13 Rows in Opole 1964). They both were hugely influenced by major commentators of Hamlet, i.e. Stanisław Wyspiański and Jan Kott. The author argues that up-to-date readings of Hamlet, which started with Wyspiański’s study in 1905, flourished in the mid-1950s and mid-1960s when concerning specific political events: the Polish Thaw of 1956 and March 1968, when the Jews were expelled from Poland. Thus Hamlet of that time was updated and must be seen through the prism of political events.

Shakespeare’s dramas are potentialities. Any Hamlet may be understood as the space in which Shakespeare’s thoughts are remembered, as a reproduced copy of the unspecified, unidentified source, the so called original. Simultaneously, it may be conceived of as the space where Shakespeare’s legacy and authority is tested, trifled and transgressed. Nowadays Shakespeare’s dramas are disseminated in multifarious forms such as: printed materials, audio and video recordings, compact audio discs, digital videos and disc recordings. Since I am fond of the cultural phenomenon called Hamlet, not a singe text or performance, but a continuum of human interaction with intermediated and transcoded versions of the drama, in this article I focus on the abovementioned single play. I accentuate the title character’s profound meaning in Shakespeare studies and his iconic status in Western culture in different media. I exploit W.B. Worthen’s concept of “Shakespeare 3.0.” to demonstrate Shakespeare’s presence in digital reality on the example of a comic rendering of Hamlet (Tugged Hamlet, 1992) by the Polish cabaret POTEM. Their cabaret sketch, although it was not created for the Internet audience, is available on-line via YouTube, consituting “Shakespeare 3.0.” Furthermore, I pose several questions and attempt to answer them in the course of my analysis: to what extent does the image of a mournful and contemplative Hamlet pervade different dimensions of culture, especially our collective imagination?; what chances of realization has a cultural fantasy of challenging the myth of a witty and contemplative Hamlet when re-written and presented as a pastiche or satire?; was the Polish cabaret POTEM succesful in their comic performance?

This article shows how the language of Shakespeare’s plays has been rendered into Catalan in three especially significant periods: the late 19th century, the early 20th century, and the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The first section centres on the contrast between natural and unnatural language in Hamlet, and considers how this differentiation is carried out (by linguistic techniques that differ substantially from Shakespeare’s) in a late 19th-century Catalan adaptation by Gaietà Soler. The second part of the article investigates the reasons why in an early 20th-century translation of King Lear the translator, Anfòs Par, resorts to medieval instead of present-time language. The last section of the article illustrates how and explores the motivations why Salvador Oliva’s first (1985) version of The Tempest is retranslated in 2006 using a different language model. The ultimate aim of the paper is to put forward the hypothesis that, in the case of Catalan, Shakespearean translations are both a reflection of the current state of the language and a major linguistic experimentation that shapes and creates (sometimes through a via negativa) the Catalan literary language.

Over the nearly two centuries that Hamlet has been a fixture of the Slovene cultural firmament, the complete text has been translated five times, mostly by highly esteemed figures of Slovene literature and literary translation. This article focuses on the most recent translation, which was done by the prominent Slovene drama translator Srečko Fišer for a performance at the National Theatre in Ljubljana in 2013. It examines the new translation’s relations to its source text as well as to the previous translations. After the late twentieth century, when Hamlet was regarded as a text to be challenged, this new translation indicates the return to the tradition of reverence both for the source text and its author, and for the older translations. This is demonstrated on all levels, from the choice of source text edition, which seems to bear more similarities with the older translations than with the most recent predecessors, to the style, which echoes the solutions used by the earlier translators. Fišer continues the Slovenian tradition to a far greater extent than the two translators twenty years ago, by using the same strategies as the early translators, not fixing what was not broken, and only adding his own interpretation to the existing ones, instead of challenging or ignoring them. At the same time, however, traces of subversion of the source text can be detected, not in the form of rebellion, but rather as a mild disregard. This latest translation is the first one to frequently reshuffle the text. It is also the first to subordinate meaning to style. This all indicates that despite the apparent return to tradition, the source text is no longer treated with the reverence of the past.

This article explores a theatre performance (National Theatre Pécs, 2003, dir. Iván Hargitai) working with a 1999 Hungarian translation of Hamlet by educator, scholar, translator and poet Ádám Nádasdy as a structural transformation (Fischer-Lichte 1992) of the dramatic text for the stage. The performance is perceived as an intersemiotic translation but not as one emerging from a source-to-target one-way route. The study focuses on certain substructures such as the set design and the multimedial nature of the performance (as defined by Giesekam 2007), and by highlighting intertextual and hypertextual ways of accessing this performance-as-translation it questions the ‘of’ in the ‘performance of Hamlet (or insert other dramatic title)’ phrase. This experimentation with the terminology around performance-as-translation also facilitates the unveiling of a layer of the complex Hungarian Hamlet palimpsest, which, as a multi-layered cultural phenomenon, consists of much more than literary texts: its fabric includes theatre performance and other creative works.

The aim of this paper is to show the role, the possibilities and the limits of Wyspiański’s national thinking through Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Of particular importance, in this context, is the role the Ghost takes in Wyspiański’s celebrated interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. By the Ghost we mean the spirit of history, the ghost of a father, the spirit of the fatherland, the voice of the ancestors, and particularly that of the Polish king Casimir the Great, as well as the Holy Ghost and the Evil Spirit because all these aspects of the Ghost belong to Wyspiański’s vision. The play in question bears witness to what the Polish poet calls “the truth of other worlds,” as well as the truth of the theatre, which Wyspiański calls the labyrinth. The poet manages to reduce, to some extent, this difficult truth to the truth of the world he cared most about, that is the present and historical reality of Poland, more specifically the city of Cracow, known as Poland’s spiritual, that is “ghostly,” and only virtual, capital. It is also remarkable that Wyspiański saw the Ghost in Hamlet in the context of other Shakespearean ghosts, apparitions and magicians, such as those that appear in Macbeth, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Richard III. At the same time, Wyspiański realizes that the Ghost, with its irrationalism, offends the spirit of post-medieval times, and as such, is understandably neglected by Hamlet, who for Wyspiański, in anticipation of Harold Bloom, stands for modernity.

Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, published in 1795, provides a fictional account of a theatrical production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Its initiator is young Wilhelm, whose experiences with this project, in the context of the novel, mark a decisive stage in his education and personal development; as well as, on another level, in the formation of a German national theatre, the mapping out of a theatrical space peculiar to the German national character. To realize his project Wilhelm has to negotiate with his manager and his fellow-actors; these negotiations can be considered reflections of the cultural aspirations and constraints prevalent late 18th-century Germany: – The project itself, as represented by Wilhelm, appears to be informed by a cultural movement towards emancipation from French culture: The character of Hamlet was interpreted as representing a role model for young Germans. – Informed by a theatrical practice based on French conventions, the manager objects to the lack of dramaturgical coherence of the Shakespeare play. As a compromise, Wilhelm composes an adapted version in which references to Wittenberg, Poland, France and England as well as several minor characters are cut, but the Hamlet scenes and speeches are retained. – Wilhelm and his friends also take account of German audiences’ preferences and capacities. The Hamlet project in Wilhelm Meister can be considered a case study of cultural appropriation. Shakespeare becomes a cultural import, used to define and map a cultural space for the German middle class, which in the nineteenth century set store by the quality of its educational make-up.

The Italian Western, Johnny Hamlet (1968), directed by Enzo G. Castellari, draws on the revenge story of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet for plot and characterization. While international distributors of the film downplayed its connection to highbrow Shakespeare, they emphasized the movie’s violent content and actionpacked revenge narrative, which was typical of the western all’italiana. Johnny Hamlet shares similarities with the brutally violent Django (1966), directed by Sergio Corbucci, whose avenging angel protagonist epitomizes the Spaghetti Western antihero. Although the filmmakers of Johnny Hamlet characterized Johnny as a vindicator, they also sought to develop the “broody” aspect of this gunfighter, one based on Shakespeare’s famously ruminating hero. Using innovative film techniques, Johnny Hamlet shows Johnny as a contemplative pistolero.

Kronborg Castle in the Danish town of Elsinore is a location strongly associated with Shakespeare thanks to the setting of Hamlet. It is a place where fiction currently eclipses history, at least in the context of a cultural tourist industry where Shakespeare’s name is worth a great deal more than Danish national heritage sites. Indeed, Kronborg is now widely marketed as ‘Hamlet’s Castle’ and the town of Elsinore has acquired the suffix ‘Home of Hamlet’. This article examines the signifiers implied in the naming and renaming of Kronborg as a Shakespearean location, while also looking at its unique international Shakespearean performance tradition, which spans two centuries. It describes how the identity of the castle has been shaped by its Shakespearean connection against the backdrop of changing ideologies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and poses questions as to how this identity may continue to develop within the current contexts of renewed nationalism in Europe and the world.

The paper will offer a reading of John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses (2010), a 90-minute experimental feature film that has been defined as “one of the most vital and original artistic responses to the subject of immigration that British cinema has ever produced” (Mitchell). It will focus on the multifarious ways in which the film makes the “canonical” literary material that it incorporates, including Shakespeare, interact with rarely seen archival material from the BBC regarding the experience of Caribbean and South Asian immigrants in 1950s and 1960s Britain. It will argue that through this interaction the familiarity of Western “canonical” literature re-presents itself as an uncanny landscape haunted by other stories, as a language that is already in itself the “language of the other” (Derrida). In particular, it will claim that Shakespearean fragments are often used in an idiosyncratic way, and they repeatedly resonate with some of the most fundamental ethical and political issues of the film, such as the question of England as “home” and migration. The paper will also argue that the decontextualization and recontextualization of these fragments makes them re-emerge as part of an interrogation of the mediality of the medium, an interrogation that also offers insights into the circulation of Shakespeare in the contemporary mediascape.

This article contains select comments and reviews on Noh Hamlet and Noh Othello in English and Noh King Lear in Japanese. The scripts from these performances were arranged based on Shakespeare’s originals and directed on stage and performed in English by Kuniyoshi Munakata from the early 1980s until 2014. Also, the whole text of Munakata’s Noh Macbeth in English (Munakata himself acted as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in one play) is for the first time publicized. The writers of the comments and reviews include notable people such as John Fraser, Michael Barrett, Upton Murakami, Donald Richie, Rick Ansorg, James David Audlin, Jesper Keller, Jean-Claude Saint-Marc, Jean-Claude Baumier, Judy Kendall, Allan Owen, Yoshio ARAI, Yasumasa OKAMOTO, Tatsuhiko TAIRA, Hikaru ENDO, Kazumi YAMAGATA, Hanako ENDO, Yoshiko KAWACHI, Mari Boyd, and Daniel Gallimore.

This essay focuses on some Shakespeare productions in Japan during 2014 and 2015. One is a Bunraku version of Falstaff, for which the writer himself wrote the script. It is an amalgamation of scenes from The Merry Wives of Windsor and those from Henry IV. It was highly reputed and its stage design was awarded a 2014 Yomiuri Theatre Award. Another is a production of Much Ado about Nothing produced by the writer himself in a theatre-in-the-round in his new translation. Another is a production of Macbeth arranged and directed by Mansai Nomura the Kyogen performer. All the characters besides Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were performed by the three witches, suggesting that the whole illusion was produced by the witches. It was highly acclaimed worldwide. Another is a production of Hamlet directed by Yukio Ninagawa, with Tatsuya Fujiwara in the title role. It was brought to the Barbican theatre. There were also many other Shakespeare productions to commemorate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.