Our people at the “Globe”
- 21.05.2012, 18:26
London public invited the Belarusian troupe for a curtain call seven times.
On May 18 the Belarus Free Theatre finished its two-day performance at Globe to Globe festival in London. The theatre outlawed in Belarus showed their version of King Lear on the stage of Shakespeare's Globe.
It would be an understatement to say that Belarusians’ performance was a success, the play was a bombshell. Actors were recalled seven times, and the Globe director Dominic Dromgoole called the Belarusian version “the most exact interpretation of the classic a lifetime.”
As said by Nikolai Khalezin, who adapted the text, and was a producer of the play, it was his first and last experience in revision of Shakespeare. “It is easier to write one’s own text, then to try to abridge Shakespeare’s text. It was a challenge for the theatre, and we have successfully met it, but it was just one of the challenges, and we are facing plenty of them, so we reserve the right to pursue a different, actual theatre,” Nikolai Khalezin said.
Directors of largest Italian theatre festivals, the artistic director of a leading US theatre, Oscar Eusits, the director of the famous festival Under the Radar Mark Russel arrived to London especially for the occasion. As charter97.org was told by Nikolai Khalezin, they had talks on a tour with this and other performances of the Belarus Free Theatre.
Leading British playwrites Tom Stoppard, Caryl Churchill, Mark Ravenhill came to see the Belarusian first show.
As said by Natalia Koliada, the director of the Belarus Free Theatre, “It is a historic event for the Belarusian art and the country in general. King Lear on the stage of Shakespeare’s theatre started to speak Belarusian.
We remind that the 6-weeks-long festival of Shakespeare’s plays Globe to Globe with 37 participants from different countries is a part of the Culture Olympics dedicated to the Olympics in London in summer 2012. On the stage of the festival plays of the British classical writer are performed in 37 different languages: from Chinese, Urdu and Armenian to English sign language.
The Belarus Free Theatre presented its play King Lear adapted by Nikolai Khalezin and directed by Vladimir Scherban. The play is performed in Belarusian.
