Author Description

Claiming the right to the language of Shakespeare and the power that it represents in our culture, this collection of Anglophone Canadian adaptations manages to talk back to that authority in some surprising ways. From an adaptation of Hamlet that draws from the plays Viking origins to a rettelling of Othello in modern-day Harlem, the plays published here all serve as examples of different ways in which Canadian playwrights have addressed the strange doubleness and rejecting, citing, and rewriting, declaring Shakespeare as their own.Includes: Cruel Tears by Ken Mitchell and Humphrey & the Dumptrucks, Claudius by Ken Gass, Mad Boy Chronicle by Michael O'Brien, Harlem Duet by Djanet Sears, Shakespeare's Will by Vern Thiessen, and Death of a Chief by Yvette Nolan and Kennedy C. MacKinnon.