Shakespeare's 'King Lear' inspires theatre artists in Kashmir

Karachi News.Net
Saturday 4th July, 2009 (ANI)

Srinagar, July 4 : Theatre experts and artistes in Jammu and Kashmir have lent a regional touch to William Shakespeare's famous play 'King Lear'.

They staged this play here on Friday in traditional folk style with the original Shakespeare's King Lear translated into Kashmiri language.

Traditional Kashmiri folk artistes enthralled hundreds of locals as well as tourists by their performance in the play titled 'Badshah Paether' at Akingam village of Anantnag district, 70 kilometres off Srinagar.

The main aim of staging the play in the traditional folk style has been to bring together the youngsters and the veterans together and to revive the artistic links through training and series of rehearsals.

Noted theatre personality M K Raina, the brain behind 'Badshah Paether' mentioned that his experiment was a success in many aspects since this would empower the young stage aspirants with a traditional form that is losing its reach and appreciation.

He had undertaken the painstaking efforts of translating Shakespeare's original play so that common audience could easily understand it.

"Since we are the traditional folk performers, so to perform for the common audience we needed language which could be understood by everyone. You must have seen people were laughing and enjoying. So we about 25 people sat together and translated it into common understandable language," said Raina. Hundreds of theatre enthusiasts including some foreign tourists were quite excited watching the entire play staged in traditional way.

"I thought it was a wonderful play though I had limitation in understanding the language fully but the emotion of the play and the basic story came through very clearly. It was beautifully performed with great intensity and beautiful staging and lot of expressions. And I thought it was wonderful production," said Haleen, a tourist from New York.

The locals too expressed their delight since the play happened to be in their regional language.

"For the first time what Raina Sahab did by translating it in Kashmir language was rally nice. And secondly I got impressed by artistes performance," said Amina, a resident. By Afzal Bhat

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