by Siti Sarah Sofea
GOMBAK, 20 March 2023: Transporting Shakespeare’s play Macbeth to the modern era with 43 students of English Language and Literature (BENL) through the performance of Shakespeare Demystified: Macbeth 2023 by KL Shakespeare Players in Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC).
The visit on March 19, 2023, was organised by the Secretariat of English Language and Literature (ELITS) to allow the students to watch a live performance of Shakespearean work by professionals. They were also exposed to a deeper level of understanding of the Macbeth play as an interesting session of Q&A was held where audiences were allowed to ask questions and discuss matters that they found interesting in the play.
"Honestly, I only read the story of Macbeth briefly before I went to the theatre. But after watching the performance, I can understand better regarding the storyline and how the characters represented themselves," said one of the students, Siti Hawa binti Hussin, who is currently taking a course on Shakespeare.
The Players
Established in 2011, KL Shakespeare Players is a theatre company that performs the annual Shakespeare Demystified series as its main thrust and has been crossing distances all over Malaysia and in other countries like the Philippines and South Korea.
Staying true to the word "demystified" in their series, the company has incorporated narrations in Standard English into their performance without going astray from Shakespeare’s language.
The co-founder of KL Shakespeare Players as well as the one who plays the character Macbeth, Lim Soon Heng, mentioned that "incorporating elements that can make the audience understand Shakespeare is important as his plays are often connected with Biblical, Greek, and English idioms that are not familiar to the local audience."
The visit to KLPAC was accompanied by three literature lecturers, Tanja Jonid, Akmal, and Homam Altabaa**
Comments