The Globe Theatre in London will celebrate the 2012 London Olympics with King Lear in an Aboriginal language, according to this ABC report. Well, it actually says in Aboriginal languages, which makes it a little odd. Will King Lear speak in Yolngu, with each of his daughters replying in Arrernte, Warlpiri and Ngaanyatjarra? Perhaps it will be in one of the multilingually influenced styles of Kriol from different parts of Australia.
This is the first we’ve heard of it here at Fully (sic), but it sounds exciting and has the potential to be an interesting venture. We hope to hear more details soon!
Update: The Globe have said that it has yet to be decided which language or languages it will be performed in, pending workshops early this year.
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Won’t be the King’s English then?
I don’t know whether you folks have noted this here (in this blog) or not, but English speakers of English regularly use a peculiar combination of tense forms, where a present participle (-ing) is replaced by a past participle.
Some examples:
“You’ve been stood there long enough to have had a beer by now!” (I heard this this past weekend).
“I was sat there …” (I am continuously hearing this).
The meaning is always clear (in context) but the grammar is clearly incorrect. Of course, they speak this way to invite gullible Australians to comment on correct English usage – to which the proper response is don’t attempt to argue with the English about English!!
A production with the royal family speaking one language to each other and the son-in-laws each speaking their own to the daughters would be a pretty justifiable decision.
So that’ll never happen.
It would be interesting to see a production of King Lear not only in an Aboriginal language, but in an Aboriginal context. Much like the recent Australian production of Macbeth recontextualised it to Melbourne’s underworld heirarchy. One might have to wrangle a bit with the details, but it would still be thoroughly interesting.
If anyone is serious about using theatre for community development they should look at the experience of the Raun Raun Theatre in Goroka, PNG, and the Wan Smol Bag Theatre in Vanuatu.