Shakespeare in Tehran City Theater: A Study of Appropriation in Hamlet: The Retribution Affair

Focusing on the cultural significations and artistic capacities of naqqali, this article examines the comparative workings of this Iranian popular genre in Hossein Jamali’s Hamlet: The Retribution Affair. Jamali’s adaptation is worth considering since it narrates the whole events and characters of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a classic text of English literature, through naqqali, a classic Persian genre, in the twenty-first century Iran. Moreover, since the adaptation is undertaken by a minor playwright who aims at being canonized in Iranian theater, it is worthwhile to investigate how tradition is manipulated in the hands of the young adaptor. Being among the first in an experimental juxtaposition of naqqali and a Western play, Jamali’s production as an artistic entity reflects both cultural evolution and inadequacies of Iranian society. Since naqqali has historically played an adaptive role in Iranian literature, it is worthwhile to investigate what utilities it finds in the young director’s adoption of it as a medium to narrate Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Considering the fact that adaptive works are typically sites to express minor literature, this study is concerned to see to what extent the indigenized Hamlet deterritorializes the source text. This examination determines whether the adaptation remains Eurocentric or shelters in tradition to portray a “people to come.”