Mark Thornton Burnett: Creating Local Purchase

Mark Thornton Burnett, professor of renaissance studies at Queens University, Belfast, on how two Shakespeare plays become films about dance in 21st Century Mexico and 19 Century banditry in Venezuela.

Oh, how I agree that Shakespeare plays are sturdy enough and robust enough to allow for an adaptation that has local purchase.  My plans for Shakespeare Talks! bank on this very notion: Whether an audience is Spanish or African, Arabic, Indian or Persian, I will fashion a staging that accounts for local language, culture and affairs.