Shakespeare In Iraq: An Interview With Dr. Samir Talib

Dr. Samir Talib is an Iraqi scholar specializing in Shakespeare and Renaissance studies. He earned his M.A. in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature from Baghdad University in 2005, followed by a Ph.D. in the same field from the University of Exeter, UK. Currently, he teaches English literature at the University of Basrah. His research interests include Shakespeare and Renaissance literature as well as Iraqi adaptations of Shakespeare.

Amir Al-Azraki: Can you share the history of how Shakespeare’s works were introduced and received in Iraq?

Samir Talib: Iraqi theatre started in the late nineteenth century in Christian schools in Mosul and Baghdad. However, the introduction of Shakespeare and other British playwrights happened after the British occupation in 1914, when English theatre troupes began to visit Iraq to perform Shakespearean plays. Then Iraqis started producing Shakespeare’s plays, with the support of troupes from Egypt and Turkey. For example, George Abyad troupe staged two Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet and Othello, in Basrah in 1927. More performances were put on by the National Acting Troupe and other troupes in various Iraqi cities in the following decades. Later the Institute of Fine Arts (established by Haki Al-Shibli in 1940) contributed to more professional performances of Shakespeare during the 1940s and 1950s. Also, Iraqi actors and directors trained in the United States and Europe presented Shakespeare’s plays in Iraq. Several names stand out, like Mohsen Al-Azawi, Sami Abdal Hamid, Jaafar Alsaadi and many others whose contributions lasted for decades to come. Many of these productions were simple rendering of the text, but some of them ventured into appropriating the plays to the Iraqi setting. Some of these appropriations were symbolically representing the political situation during the Ba’ath era. However, the Ba’ath regime also employed Shakespeare to perpetuate anti-Semitic sentiments by prescribing a novelization of The Merchant of Venice as a set reading for high school students.  After the 2003 war, Shakespeare was recalled to address current issues like civil unrest, political corruption, the division of the country, etc. Yet, in this period, the production of Shakespeare leaned more towards appropriating the plays to the Iraqi setting than to merely producing the original. On the academic level, and since the establishment of Iraqi universities in Baghdad, Basrah and Mosul, Shakespeare’s plays are required as set reading at Departments of theatre and English in both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

Amir Al-Azraki: In your opinion, what themes in Shakespeare’s plays resonate most with Iraqi audiences?

Samir Talib: Shakespeare is relevant today because of the universality of the ideas and themes in his plays. As a result, several themes in Shakespeare resonated with the Iraqi audience. Some of these themes are political, such as regicide, assassination, political ambition and regime change, which featured in such plays as Macbeth and Julius Caesar. Iraqi audiences found these themes especially relevant due to the political unrest and authoritarian rule that characterized the political scene in Iraq for over half a century. Other themes have social resonances, such as revenge, arranged marriages and parental authority (due to the tribal nature of Iraqi society, especially in the rural areas).  These featured in plays like Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other themes resonated because of their moral implications, such as friendship, hospitality, and racial discrimination which are highlighted in plays like Macbeth, Julius Caesar and Othello.

Amir Al-Azraki: How do cultural and historical contexts in Iraq influence the interpretation of Shakespeare’s plays?

Samir Talib: The reception of Shakespeare changed over time according to the political and social issues that preoccupied Iraqi society at any given period. For example, professor of theatre and Canadian playwright Robert Fothergill talks about a performance of Macbeth that he helped to produce in Baghdad in the late 1950s, after the toppling down of Iraqi monarchy and the establishment of the Iraqi republic. That performance sparked controversy since Macbeth is highly relevant as it highlighted the theme of regicide. Issues of political legitimacy and regime change continued to be relevant during the rule of the Ba’ath regime (1968-2003), featuring such plays as Macbeth and Julius Caesar. In the aftermath of 2003, and with the occasional decline of the national theatre, performances of Shakespeare continued in colleges and universities. This time new themes emerged as a reflection of the political and social turmoil. The theme of national unity surfaced as urgently relevant due to calls for dividing the country into three regions. King Lear featured prominently in this context in order to demonstrate how hopelessly premature these calls are. Themes of the corruption of the political institutions also surged in this period, with appropriation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, among others.

Amir Al-Azraki: How are Shakespeare’s plays adapted for Iraqi audiences? Can you give examples of local adaptations?

Samir Talib: Changes made to the original plays differ widely. While a few performances enjoy high fidelity to the original (except for translating them into Arabic), many others practice more liberty in changing the text so as to give it a local edge. Writer and director Sami Abd al-Hamid, for example, felt more freedom in appropriating the Shakespeare text. In his adaptation Hamlet Arabian (1973), he presented Hamlet as an Arab prince living in an Arab tribal society which is very sensitive to the idea of revenge. And in his adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1982), he chose Arabic names and costumes and merged it with the atmosphere of The Arabian Nights. In a more recent adaptation, Munadhel Dawood’s Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad (2012) chose to set Shakespeare’s tragedy in a characteristically Iraqi setting, turning Shakespeare’s Montagues and Capulets’ feud into a sectarian feud between Sunnites and Shiites. Ghalib Alkanani staged Coriolanus in 2016 with students of the University of Basrah to highlight themes of political and economic corruption in the post-2003 era in Iraq. These are just a few examples of how Shakespeare’s plays were accommodated for local settings.

Amir Al-Azraki: What challenges do directors face when staging Shakespeare’s plays in Iraq?

Samir Talib: Performing Shakespeare for an English audience poses its challenges, but doing so for an Arabic audience is even more complex. This is true for the productions in both Arabic and English. In either case, moving a story by a writer in sixteenth century England to twenty-first century Iraq is extremely challenging. Productions in Arabic need be based on authoritative translations of the texts. Even then, directors need to cut out large parts of the texts that might be socially and culturally irrelevant to the Iraqi audience. Performances in English mostly take place at Universities. They are no less challenging in that they require intensive training of students on the correct pronunciation of words and sentences. Adapting costumes and gestures and body language also contribute to these challenges. Most challenging of all, however, is adapting Shakespeare’s themes and ideas to an Iraqi setting. Directors need to be genuinely creative in accommodating the plays to an Iraqi setting and in finding resonances with Iraqi society.

Amir Al-Azraki: How is Shakespeare taught in Iraqi schools and universities? What is the general attitude toward his works?

Samir Talib: Iraqi high school English curricula include only one Shakespearean sonnet and a summary of one play. In contrast, the university curriculum provides a more in-depth exploration of Shakespeare’s work. For example, in schools of theatre, students always study (excerpts of) the plays and are trained on performing them in modern standard Arabic. At Departments of English students study drama, poetry and the novel chronologically. They study Shakespeare’s plays in Years Two and Three. In year Two, students are required to study two plays, a comedy and a tragedy. In the first semester in year Three, they also study another Shakespeare play, mostly a tragedy. The favorite plays selected for teaching include (Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, etc.)  Interestingly, they study the original language of the plays (with modernized spelling). Although students usually complain about the difficulty of the language of the plays, they interact positively with the themes and ideas. Young people get engaged with issues that they find relevant to their lives. When teachers attach relevance to themes of revenge, love, political ambition, etc., students become intimately engaged and discuss them openly.

Amir Al-Azraki: What is your personal favorite Shakespearean play, and why?

Samir Talib: As a scholar with an M.A. and Ph.D. in Shakespeare, I have been deeply engaged in both teaching and writing about his plays.  However, my favorite play is Hamlet. This choice is related to its language and themes. As far as the language is concerned, it contains some of the most beautiful passages not only in Shakespeare, but in English literature in general. (The ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy, of course, stands out here.) Moreover, many of the themes it explores are universal. The play dramatizes the plight of a young human being who finds himself in conflict with natural and supernatural forces over which he has no control. This is a story that anyone can relate to. The play continues to captivate me with its self-awareness as a theatrical work; it foregrounds its own theatricality, laying bare the fact that it is a play, not real life. For example, when Hamlet wonders how the first player weeps for Hecuba (And all for nothing! for Hecuba! / What is Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba/ That he should weep for her?), he is ironically making the exact same comment about himself: we, the audience, can likewise wonder why we should weep for Hamlet. Just like Hecuba, he is a ‘fiction,’ and, therefore, ‘nothing’! What is Hamlet to us or we to Hamlet?! The play does not fail to impress audience and readers with ideas about humanity, death, loyalty, etc.

Amir Al-Azraki: If you could stage a Shakespeare play in Iraq, which play would you choose and where would you stage it?

Samir Talib: If I were to stage a Shakespeare play, I would do an abridged version of the three parts of Henry VI. Unfortunately, Shakespeare’s history plays are rarely adapted outside of England. This might be due to their topicality, as they deal with specific events in Medieval England, namely, the War of the Roses. Yet, Henry VI dramatizes issues of civil strife and internal conflict that are depressingly similar to a large portion of the post-2003 Iraqi political and social scene. The premature actions (or inactions) of the English elites that torn the nation apart and jeopardized its very existence during these wars might ring a bell for an Iraqi audience. The plays also demonstrate how a week central government paves the way for emergent warring factions and endlessly competing warlords. The plays, moreover, contain very tense scenes, as in the war in part Three where a father, unawares, kills his son and a son his father. Such scenes have a great performative potential and can easily adapted to other settings.

Amir Al-Azraki: Can you share a memorable experience related to performing or studying Shakespeare in Iraq?

Samir Talib: In 2016, I directed an adaptation of Hamlet. It was performed by students of the Department of English, University of Basrah. Titled Hamlet: Horatio’s Story, it is based on the premise that, in response to Hamlet’s final request to Horatio to “tell my story,” and Horatio’s acceptance to “speak to the yet unknowing world / How these things came about,” there exists an alternate version of events that Horatio has written. Therefore, it was an attempt for a backward reconstruction of Horatio’s version. The text contained extracts from and intertextual reference to other Shakespearean plays. It was a challenging experience, as the performance was in Shakespearean English, requiring extensive training for students in pronunciation and intonation. Besides, this adaptation departed from traditional performances as we cast a female student to play Hamlet. As much as it was a challenging experience, it was an enormously useful learning experience for me personally: it gave me a firsthand experience of Shakespearean performance, highlighting the most challenging aspects, the techniques for encouraging actors to fully immerse themselves in their roles, and more. After all, the dedication that those students showed was what made it work.

Amir Al-Azraki: How do you envision the future of Shakespearean theatre in Iraq?

Samir Talib: The future of Shakespeare in Iraq has different aspects. In academics, I expect little change since curricula update very slowly. In theatre, traditional performances will likely continue. For example, there are preparations this summer by renowned Iraqi director Salah Al-Qasab to stage Shakespeare’s Richard III. However, I can identify two ongoing movements since the last decade: the first is a movement from mere adaptation to radical appropriation of the plays. Iraqi directors are becoming increasingly prone to drastically localize the plays in order to accommodate them to Iraqi settings. The second is a movement away from a narrative storytelling of Shakespeare’s plays (or their appropriation) towards a more symbolic engagement with their themes and characters. One illustrative example is Mounir Rady’s The Shakespearean Monodramatic Pentalogy (2023). In the five pieces of this work, Rady presents monologues inspired by and responding to various Shakespearean characters—like Lear, Lady Macbeth, and Desdemona—in an effort to explore and connect with their unwritten pasts. It departs from the real Shakespearean stories to speak to the soul of these characters that remained implied in the plays. Besides, I think that the reception and production of Shakespeare’s theatre will not be immune to technological advancements, like Virtual Reality, fanfiction and AI. The young generation of scholars and theatre practitioners are becoming increasingly familiarized with and capable of using these technologies in their interaction with Shakespeare.