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Author:
Sara Soncini
Sara Soncini
University of Pisa sara.soncini@unipi.it
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Abstract
Looking at contemporary conflict through the lens of the past has been a prominent aspect of Shakespeare’s afterlife. Even today, his plays continue to be mobilized in the Balkan region in order to address the aftermath of ethnic violence. This article focuses on theatrical and cinematic takes that are chronologically close but geographically distant from the Yugoslav context. Katie Mitchell’s staging of 3 Henry VI (1994), Sarah Kane’s play Blasted (1995) and Mario Martone’s documentary-style film, Rehearsal for War (1998) were all prompted by a deep-felt urge to confront the Bosnian war and reclaim it from the non-European otherness to which it systematically became confined in public discourse at the time. In Shakespeare, these artists found a powerful conceptual aid to universalize the conflict, as well as a means to address their discursive positioning as outsiders and its problematic implications.
Contributor Notes
Sara Soncini is a researcher in English Literature at the University of Pisa. Her areas of interest include contemporary British drama, with an emphasis on the representation of war and conflict, modern-day appropriations of Shakespeare, and Restoration and early eighteenth-century theatre culture. She has recently published Forms of Conflict: Contemporary Wars on the British Stage (University of Exeter Press, 2016).