Who's There? Shakespeare in Production as Heterotopia in France

• Published in: Romance studies : a journal of the University of Wales 2011-11, Vol.29 (4), p.269-284
• Main Author: Fayard, Nicole
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0263-9904; 1745-8153
• DOI: 10.1179/174581511X13110026996694

By virtue of the increasing spatial networks in which it is performed, contemporary Shakespeare is globalized and cosmopolitan and seems to function as a timeless non-place. However, at the local level, cultural encounters with Shakespeare also allegedly introduce dissonant voices that destabilize dominant readings of the plays. This article analyses the Shakespearian productions of four contemporary French directors within the context of a culture of alternate ordering that aims to carve out social and cultural space as a space of difference and hybridity. It firstly suggests a reading of the version of Hamlet that Daniel Mesguich staged in 1996 based on his problematization of spatial practice and representation. The techniques of displacement the production entailed created double effects and affected translation to the extent that the play became associated with the Otherness of space and time. In another theatrical register illustrated by some of the smaller companies working outside of large theatrical institutions, the productions of directors Michel Laubu (1996-97), Jean-Luc Courcoult (2003-06), and Michel Cailleau (2003-to date) further dislocate the Shakespearian text, to recycle it with heterogeneous everyday objects and integrate it into the life of the city. In these productions the heterogeneization of Shakespeare collapses space and time together, and unsettles order and hierarchies. Shakespeare is reterritorialized into counter-sites of difference which are neither French, English, nor Shakespearian spaces, asking what meanings are created when Shakespeare is produced in another culture and language. In these productions the understanding of Shakespeare may be affected by textual disruption and the undermining of interpretative certainties. Dislocation undermines the logic of meaning and gives access to a polysemic theatre which presents the shared Shakespearian memory as a problematic cultural space. (Author abstract)