Credits, Synopsis & Script

Richard III: An Arab Tragedy
A contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic in Arabic (with English surtitles)
Adapted & Directed by Sulayman Al Bassam
Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Complete Works Festival

Production Designer: Sam Collins
Original Music and Sound Design: Lewis Gibson
Lighting Designer: Richard Williamson
Costume Designer: Abdullah Al-Awadhi
Arabic Translation: Mehdi Al-Sayegh

Cast:
Queen Elizabeth: Carole Abboud
Emir Grey/Ratcliffe: Bashar Abdullah
Emir Rivers/Newscaster: Faisal Al-Ameeri
Mr Richmond: Nigel Barrett
Minister of State Hastings/Lord Mayor: Nicolas Daniel
King Edward IV/Catesby: Monadhil Daood
Palace Advisor Buckingham: Raymond El Hosny
Lady Anne/Mistress Shore: Nadine Joma’a
Emir Gloucester, later King Richard III: Fayez Kazak
Emir Clarence/Stanley: Jassim Al-Nabhan
Queen Margaret/Crown Prince Edward: Amal Omran

Citizens, soldiers and others played by members of the company

Musicians:
Ahmad Al Dabbous
Sami Bilal
Lewis Gibson
Faisal Khalaf/Abdullah Sakran
Sultan Al Meftah/Abdullah Hamad

Production Managers: Aude Albiges/Sam Collins
Company Stage Manager: Faisal Al-Obaid
Deputy Stage Manager: Misha’al Al-Omar
Assistant Stage Manager: Saad Samir
Surtitles Director: Wafa’a Al-Fraheen
Technical Stage Coordinator: Corinna MacEwan
Technical Assistants: Andrew Grant/David Glover

A Sabab Theatre production
Generously supported by Zain

Synopsis

Award-winning Kuwaiti writer/director Sulayman Al Bassam re-imagines Richard III’s all-consuming struggle for power in the modern Arab world, a world of tribal links, family struggles and absolute power. Shakespeare’s text is uprooted from the mediaeval Christian world, reworked and transplanted into the scorching oil-rich Islamic world of the Gulf today. The play unfolds within the hothouse, feudal atmosphere of desert palaces in an oil-rich kingdom. In this world of tribal allegiances, family in-fighting and absolute power, the questions of leadership, religion and foreign intervention that are at the heart of Shakespeare’s play, take on powerful new meanings in a modern context. The production is a window into the often misunderstood world of the Arabian Gulf in all its richness: its social customs, musical heritage and some of its darker mystical rituals. Performed in Arabic, with English surtitles, by an all-star cast from across the Arab world, the production is accompanied by a live sound track, with the chants of pearl divers sounding alongside modern sampled sounds, live African melodies and music from the desert areas of the Arabian peninsula.

Script

If you would like to be sent a copy of the script of Richard III An Arab Tragedy (in Arabic or English), please email us.

Previous scripts by Sulayman Al Bassam are available as published play texts on Amazon and will also be available on tour.

Director’s Note

Richard III: An Arab Tragedy

The play is a mask.
A mask not to hide: but to reveal.
The mask reveals lines of our own identity that the mirror obliterates.
I use the mask to mirror our world.
The mask also carries its own essence, rooted in secret and ritual.
Cycles of blood and revenge, lamentation and cruelty:
These are the lines of the mask.
I use our world to mirror the mask.

When the Royal Shakespeare Company first gave me the opportunity to work on this piece, I found myself confronted with two major questions: firstly, how could I take the heart of this text -foreign, strange and distant heart that it is- and transplant it into an Arab frame in such a way that it could still pulse, make sense and live? Then, beyond that -assuming that was possible!- how could I re-present this new ‘body’ in different parts of the world in such a way that it could faithfully carry an Arab geneology, an Arab sense of history and the marks and concerns of an Arab world view?

The piece that emerged is an attempt to answer these questions.

The journey of the creation of this piece was a journey between two cultures: we started with no maps. Sometimes we would lose the way and have to fall back onto instinct and experimentation and sometimes we would find bright paths that had been cleared by the passage of humanity over the ages. During this journey we did not give in to the fear of exploring these events within a contemporary Arab context: our own history has taught us first-hand the dangers and bitterness of tyranny. Nor did we shy away from exploring beauty within an Arab-Islamic cultural framework because it is our belief that this very framework, strengthened by auto-criticism and disciplined free thought, is the only real framework through which we can successfully confront the challenges of modernity and move forward with charge of human progress. Through the inspiration of Shakespeare’s dramatic poetry we seek to move beyond the seeming contradictions of Identity and Modernity.

Sulayman Al Bassam

Interviews with Sulayman Al Bassam

Watch Jeffrey Brown’s interview with Sulayman Al Bassam for Jim Lehrer’s Newshour on PBS

Listen to Jacki Lyden’s interview with Sulayman Al Bassam and Fayez Kazak for NPR
and Karen Frillmann‘s interview with Sulayman for WNYC

Watch a short clip from the production and brief interview with Sulayman as part of the review of the Kennedy Center’s Arabesque fesitval on the BBC website

Read a preview by Anna Seaman and interview with Sarah Wolff for The National (UAE) plus video extract of dress rehearsals at Al Ain, for Inside the National

Read an interview with Sulayman and review of the performances in Abu Dhabi for CNN Arabic

Al Jazeera interviews on Richard III: An Arab Tragedy’s first opening in Stratford:

Press Reviews

“It is your right to ignore me,” mad Margaret announces in the play’s prologue. This production makes that impossible.
Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Few works catch the various currents within Arabism and Islam such as Al-Bassam. It is seldom that one sees a shakespearean reworking that is so consistently enlightening while also retaining dramatic power.
Ian Shuttleworth, The Financial Times (UK)

In this gripping production Al-Bassam has found the perfect correlative to Shakespeare’s poetry. The collision between past and present is smack-on.
Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph (UK)

Carried off with great brio, this is a punchy, irreverent makeover that retools Shakespeare for the world of Saddam, the CIA and the House of Saud.
Brian Logan, The Guardian (UK)

…Impressive flair and intellectual ambition. Rich in resonance.
Sam Marlowe, The Times (UK)

Exhilarating. Modern intermissions combine beautifully with ancient interpolations…a hard watch, but a good one.
Kieron Quirke, The Evening Standard (UK)

A richly suggestive theatrical experience
Patrick Carnegy, The Spectator (UK)

an estimable example of artistic cross-fertilization
Peter Marks, Washington Post (USA)

‘I searched for a universal story told within the Muslim context and found it in this production of Richard III’ Joseph Melillo (Brooklyn Academy of Music)
Alexis Soloski, The Village Voice (USA)

provocative adaptation
Roseanne Wells, playshakespeare.com

Festival highlight in Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas, a 10-day cultural festival in New York
Felicia Lee, The New York Times festival preview

Though the language would be unfamiliar to the Bard, the emotional core of the story is left untouched, which is why Richard III: An Arab Tragedy is so successful. It is a cautionary tale for all time.
Sarah Wolff, The National (UAE)

arresting stage moments
Elisabeth Vincentelli, blogs.nypost.com

provocative theatrical production
Diana Barth, The Epoch Times

Manal Abdel Ahad, As-Safir (Lebanon)

Discussion – Authorship & Text

We welcome discussion on the play