Playing with Shakespeare's Idea
by Roman HankevychFrom: The Experimental. The English-language daily paper of 8th Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theater. Cairo, 1996
Last Thursday, Egyptian audience could see an interesting experiment performed at Al Hanager Gallery by an Ukrainian Group.
The creator of this performance, Vasyl Bazhaj, is an artist well-known both in Ukraine and abroad. Participants of this interesting experiment tried to capture Shakespeare’s idea and transform it from a metaphysical eidos into an array of physical signs shown before the audience.
Two important elements in the performance were prominent: video and lighting. The first one made the show endless in time and space while the second produced thrilling mystical effects, creating in such a way the ambience needed for the play.
The author wanted to indicate that the human beings’ genius, their abilities to produce works of art can transform its idea in its own way.
Because of this newly found freedom, artists are able to “play” with the ideas of Shakespeare, Euripides, Sophocles or any other dramatist. They can put themselves on dramatists’ place, and, if necessary, even become one with them.