Hamlet (Un-)Masked: SPAC’s Hamlet under COVID-19 Restrictions

Tomoka Tsukamoto; Ted Motohashi

doi:10.18778/2083-8530.30.03

Authors

Tomoka Tsukamoto International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), Japan
Ted Motohashi Tokyo University of Economics, Japan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.30.03

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Keywords:

Hamlet, COVID-19 pandemic, sisterhood, orality and aurality, historical temporalities, Embracing Defeat

Abstract

One of the reasons why Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as a play representing the essential problematics of Western Modernity, is still relevant today, is that it contains the cultural dynamics that ranges over issues around colonialism, patriarchy, and individual identities, all of which have been causes and consequences of the Western Modernity. More specifically, in the current context of the declining Western hegemony, symbolized by regional military conflicts and environmental degradation, among other crises, the urgency to freshly produce and interpret this play seems to be increasing. This essay attempts to question the significance of staging Hamlet today by examining Satoshi Miyagi’s version of the play at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and through its analysis, we aim to reflect how Hamlet, while characterizing Western Modernity, harbors the potential to critique its essence.

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Author Biographies

Tomoka Tsukamoto, International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), Japan

Tomoka Tsukamoto is a theatre critic and a member of IATC (International Association of Theatre Critics). She received her MA in Drama Studies from Nihon University in 1996. Her publications include a book on Miyagi Satoshi’s theatre, and most recently an essay on Miyagi’s works, “Gender, Ecology, and Theatre of Catastrophe: The Apocalyptic Vision and the Deconstruction of Western Modernity in Satoshi Miyagi’s Demon Lake,” Critical Stages 26 (2022).

Ted Motohashi, Tokyo University of Economics, Japan

Ted Motohashi is Professor of Cultural Studies at the Tokyo University of Economics. He received his D.Phil. in Literature from the University of York, UK. His publications include several books on drama, cultural and postcolonial studies, and most recently he published ‘“Our Perdita is found’: The Politics of Trust and Risk in The Winter’s Tale Directed by Satoshi Miyagi” in Shakespeare and the Political: Elizabethan Politics and Asian Exigencies (Bloomsbury, 2024). He is a leading translator into Japanese of works by Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Rey Chow, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and others.