Hamlet (RSC, 2016) and representations of diasporic blackness. Issue 1 (July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Iyengar, Sujata; Feracho, Lesley
• Other Names: Kapitaniak Pierre guest-editor.; Sakowska Aleksandra guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Cahiers élisabéthains. Volume 99:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 147
• Page End: 160
• Publication Date: 2019-07
• Subjects: Shakespeare -- Hamlet -- race -- performance -- diaspora -- carnival; Shakespeare -- Hamlet -- race -- mise en scène -- diaspora -- carnaval; English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism -- Book reviews -- Periodicals; 820.9003
• DOI: 10.1177/0184767819837738
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0184-7678

Abstract

In 2016 Paapa Essiedu, a British actor of Ghanaian ancestry, starred as Hamlet in Simon Godwin's lauded Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production, set in a post-colonial African state whose non-specificity nonetheless irritated some reviewers. We contend, however, that the production mixed multiple referents of blackness (Eastern African, West African, Caribbean, South African, 1970s African American) in order deliberately to create an imaginary post-colonial domain where these different kinds of diasporic blackness engaged with each other through the figure of Hamlet and his art. We therefore examine how the concept of race changes with the transatlantic or transnational movement among spaces in this production.