Tunisian director adapts Macbeth for the World Shakespeare Festival
Ambition, tyranny and violence - the key ingredients of William Shakespeare's bloody tragedy Macbeth. Though some 400 years old, the play is thoroughly modern to the film and theatre director Lotfi Achour, who believes the very same issues triggered the Arab Spring in his native Tunisia.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/Tunisian-direct...
"Some of the parallels between the two stories are astonishing," he says. "The repression of a rebellion during which the former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Macbeth use their positions to promote themselves; the betrayal of the established leaders; the couple who revel in crime and cut themselves off from the rest of the
world; paranoia, witchcraft, irrationality. All these themes reflect the life and reign of Ben Ali."
Achour will stage his adaptation of the Bard's Scottish play Macbeth: Leila & Ben - A Bloody History, in Arabic with surtitles at this summer's World Shakespeare Festival in Britain as part of the London 2012 Festival.
His central characters Leila and Ben represent the exiled Tunisian president and his wife, who, following a month of violent opposition protests in late 2010, were forced into exile with their children to Saudi Arabia. In June last year, the pair was sentenced, in absentia, to 35 years in prison for crimes including embezzlement, theft and corruption.
The English playwright's version tells the story of a Scottish General named Macbeth who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that he will become the fated King of Scotland. With the unconditional support of his wife, and consumed by his ambition to take the throne, he commits regicide and untold subsequent murders to hide the fact and secure his position. In a reign characterised by oppression, injustice and paranoia, an unrepentant Macbeth and Lady Macbeth come to a bloody end.
"I knew immediately that I wanted to work on one of Shakespeare's plays, which focuses on the frenzy of power, so that I could relate it to power struggles not just in Tunisia, but also the wider Arab world. And in my homeland, the reality of these struggles far surpasses any fiction," says Achour. "I had actually decided to direct Macbeth before the fall of Ben Ali - and the way history has unfolded since then has justified my reasons for choosing this play and in my eyes makes the project even more important and necessary."
Helping the director bring this vision to life are the two other members of his theatre company APA - Artistes Producteurs Associés, based in France and Tunisia and founded in 2009. The home-grown, budding actor and songwriter Jawhar Basti takes the title role of Macbeth, while the French-Italian-Tunisian actress Anissa Daoud, as a writer and performer, plays his accomplice Leila Macbeth.
"This play for me is as much musical as it is theatrical - songs play an important part," says Achour. "Accordingly, my choice of actors was influenced not only by acting skill, but also by musical talent - the play is cast with singers who can act in order to fulfil my vision of a production that incorporates singing, theatre and film. And I wanted Anissa to take up the challenge of interpreting the legendary character of Lady Macbeth to bring to the stage a living person with a public persona that still provokes the hatred and bitterness that this woman does."
Achour has remained faithful to Shakespeare's framework and sequence of major events, yet transposed his text into a modern-day context and reality. Plus, through his use of archived video and reportage, he has succeeded in creating a living, breathing "mockumentary".
Rebecca McLaughlin-Duane - The National
world; paranoia, witchcraft, irrationality. All these themes reflect the life and reign of Ben Ali."
Achour will stage his adaptation of the Bard's Scottish play Macbeth: Leila & Ben - A Bloody History, in Arabic with surtitles at this summer's World Shakespeare Festival in Britain as part of the London 2012 Festival.
His central characters Leila and Ben represent the exiled Tunisian president and his wife, who, following a month of violent opposition protests in late 2010, were forced into exile with their children to Saudi Arabia. In June last year, the pair was sentenced, in absentia, to 35 years in prison for crimes including embezzlement, theft and corruption.
The English playwright's version tells the story of a Scottish General named Macbeth who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that he will become the fated King of Scotland. With the unconditional support of his wife, and consumed by his ambition to take the throne, he commits regicide and untold subsequent murders to hide the fact and secure his position. In a reign characterised by oppression, injustice and paranoia, an unrepentant Macbeth and Lady Macbeth come to a bloody end.
"I knew immediately that I wanted to work on one of Shakespeare's plays, which focuses on the frenzy of power, so that I could relate it to power struggles not just in Tunisia, but also the wider Arab world. And in my homeland, the reality of these struggles far surpasses any fiction," says Achour. "I had actually decided to direct Macbeth before the fall of Ben Ali - and the way history has unfolded since then has justified my reasons for choosing this play and in my eyes makes the project even more important and necessary."
Helping the director bring this vision to life are the two other members of his theatre company APA - Artistes Producteurs Associés, based in France and Tunisia and founded in 2009. The home-grown, budding actor and songwriter Jawhar Basti takes the title role of Macbeth, while the French-Italian-Tunisian actress Anissa Daoud, as a writer and performer, plays his accomplice Leila Macbeth.
"This play for me is as much musical as it is theatrical - songs play an important part," says Achour. "Accordingly, my choice of actors was influenced not only by acting skill, but also by musical talent - the play is cast with singers who can act in order to fulfil my vision of a production that incorporates singing, theatre and film. And I wanted Anissa to take up the challenge of interpreting the legendary character of Lady Macbeth to bring to the stage a living person with a public persona that still provokes the hatred and bitterness that this woman does."
Achour has remained faithful to Shakespeare's framework and sequence of major events, yet transposed his text into a modern-day context and reality. Plus, through his use of archived video and reportage, he has succeeded in creating a living, breathing "mockumentary".
Rebecca McLaughlin-Duane - The National
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/Tunisian-direct...