Shakespeare in Bollywood : Bollywood News

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts – As You Like It

Shakespearana was a unique theatre group of 12 people run by Geoffrey Kendall, with his wife Laura and daughter Jennifer. Shakespearana had a repertoire of English plays, mostly by Shakespeare, where Jennifer would often play lead roles. The tour of this professional company, which survived solely by acting Shakespeare’s works in English, marked the lingering presence as well as the imminent decline of colonial rule in India. It was Shakespearana that made Pritviraj Kapoor’s theatre company ‘Prithvi Theatre’ empty ‘Empire Theatre’ in Calcutta so that the former could have their shows. Later, Prithviraj’s son actor Shashi Kapoor who was also part of his father’s company met Jennifer and the two ended up getting married. Shashi then starred in the James Ivory film Shakespeare-Wallah in 1965 which spoke about a British troupe of actors who hold Shakespeare plays in various parts of India. Yes, that was pretty much Geoffrey Kendall’s story! The film was applauded by critics and is now part of the Merchant-Ivory collection.

But, for my own part, it was Greek to me – Julius Caesar

And here are some of the Indian actors who danced to the tunes of Shakespeare.

So Naseeruddin Shah plays the role of Bhaisaab (Brabantio) in the Indian version of Othello titled Omkara. He also did a small role as the corrupt cop Inspector Purohit in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Maqbool which was an adaptation of Macbeth. But do you know that his association with Shakespeare doesn’t begin here. He was part of the cast of the French TV film The Tragedy of Hamlet in 2002 where he donned the role of Rosencrantz. The film was nominated for one Emmy.

NRI Sam Dastor has also acted in a couple of Shakespeare’s works. His first Shakespearean stint began with the UK-US TV film Julius Caesar in 1972 where he played Casca. He then went onto act in The Comedy of Errors in 1983 as Angelo.

Do you know that even Diana Hayden enacted the role of Emilia that Konkona Sen Sharma is now doing in Omkara. The film which released in 2005 was made in South Africa and was titled Othello: A South African Tale.