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Shakespeare & Beyond

An Iranian Hamlet

Imagine a Hamlet set not in Denmark, but in Iran. Arian Moayed, an Iranian-American actor, plays the prince in a new dual-language production from Waterwell in New York, May 10-Jun 3, directed by Tom Ridgely.

A review in The New York Times describes how Western influences have permeated Hamlet’s home, set in the early 1900s:

The royal court that is portrayed here is well on the way to becoming thoroughly modernized — and westernized. The men wear tailored European suits or military uniforms… Everybody speaks English. The king, Claudius (Andrew Ramcharan Guilarte) — who has only recently ascended the throne after the suspicious death of his monarch brother — delights his new wife (and former sister-in-law), Gertrude, by giving her a Victrola, which plays the latest tunes from Tin Pan Alley. And when we finally meet the much-discussed foreign invader Fortinbras (Cary Donaldson), he is dressed in colonial whites, with a pith helmet.

In an interview with American Theatre, Moayed talks about the line between East and West that his Hamlet straddles. At the beginning of the play, the Persian royal has just returned from school abroad (Oxford? Cambridge?) and is wearing a three-piece suit. But after the appearance of his father’s ghost, wearing traditional Iranian garb and speaking Farsi, Moayed’s own clothing and language transforms, building the tension between the Eastern and Western influences on Hamlet’s identity.