global king lear: crisis, performance, adaptation

Global King Lear provides a kaleidoscopic view of multinational adaptations of King Lear with a focus on productions across Asia and Eastern Europe. By approaching Shakespeare’s great tragedy as a global phenomenon its signature themes become context-dependent and culture-specific whilst avoiding simplistic appeals to the play’s universality. International scholars of literature and theatre explore those culturally specific interpretations as new plays, films, and critical contributions on their own terms.

As a film in Japan, King Lear becomes a meditation on contemporary eldercare and the question of celebrity; on a stage in Hungary the play emerges as a ferocious invective against domestic abuse; in another performance in Hungary the play considers childhood trauma and a crisis in maternal care; and a pan-Asian Lear emerges out of multiple adaptations on stage and screen in India, Japan, and China. Taken together these readings are dismantled as merely derivative interpretations and cast instead as theatrical and cinematic engines of transformation. Despite the play’s focus on the cultural context of England, this volume highlights King Lear’s position as one of the most popular texts for international directors and playwrights to explore their own nations’ troubles and challenges. This collection focuses on the potential for King Lear to be performed, adapted, and understood anew by multiple audiences in a range of mediums and contexts.

William R. Rampone is Professor of English at South Carolina State University, USA.

Eric S. Mallin is Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.