Using Sinicised Adaptations for Shakespeare Pedagogy in Taiwan

Abstract

The Banquet (2006) is a martial-arts costume movie by Mainland director Feng Xiao-gang. Though adopting only the skeletal framework of its Shakespearean source, it was publicised as the first Chinese filmic adaptation of Hamlet.¹ Bond (2009) is a traditional Yu Opera production based on a careful reworking of The Merchant of Venice by two Taiwanese drama professors, Ching-hsi Perng and Fang Chen. Both productions took the challenge of transplanting Shakespeare into the unlikely setting of Dynastic China, and retelling the Bard’s stories with visualauditory images that are strikingly Chinese. Drawing on data collected in two Shakespeare classes I taught at National Taiwan University (NTU) between 2009 and 2010, this essay will examine how the two productions came across as Shakespeare adaptations to Chinese-speaking college undergraduates who watched the performances (on DVD) with a special interest in finding Shakespeare in them.