HAMLETHAIDER  A PLAY-WITHIN-A-PLAY/FILM,  AUDIENCE RESPONSE, AND CULTURAL POLITICS  By   Emily Caroline Yates         A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of  Literature in EnglishMaster of Arts   2016   ABSTRACT  HAMLETHAIDER A PLAY-WITHIN-A-PLAY/FILM,  AUDIENCE RESPONSE, AND CULTURAL POLITICS  By   Emily Caroline Yates       performance  through players   reveals the significance Shakespeares play. Scholarly discussion around this critical moment  and The Murder of Gonzago, and this thesis adds to this discussion but focuses on audience response at a different magnitude by applying re, specifically the alienation  to re-visualize this self-reflexive scene. This larger focus includes the reaction and perception of Gertrude, Ophelia, and members of the court, as well as the audience of Hamlet viewing this play-within-a-play. I also apply this method to an analysis of the cultural politics of seHaider (2014), which further complicates our understanding of audience response by contextualizing it within politics and history. In Haider, the audience is bigger than Claudius; the audience now includes the people of Kashmir and India, and the viewer of the film, and the message is not merely a condemnation of a murder, but a critique on the current political climate and a call to Looking at Hamlet and Haider through these lenses informs our understanding of thematic conflicts between action and acting, and between performance and reality, and it helps us rethink modern concerns like the surveillance state and the intersection of art, reality, and politics within our own lives.                       Copyright by     EMILY CAROLINE YATES     2016  iv  TABLE OF CONTENTS   .v  INTRODUCTION: CATCHING THE CONSCIENCE ..  CRITICAL HISTORIES OF HAMLET.  SELF-REFLEXIVE THEATRICALITY AND AUDIENCE RESPONSE TO HAMLET.......16  THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF ADAPTATION: SHAKESPEARE ON FILM AND HAIDER...23  CODA: FUTURES OF SHAKESPEARE IN GLOBAL ..  WORKS CITED........37   v  LIST OF FIGURES   Figure 1:  Haider played by Shahid Kapoor performs with dancers before Khurram, Ghazala, and audience.28  Figure 2:  Haider .29  Figure 3:  Haider .31  1  INTRODUCTION: CATCHING THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING at the end of Act 2 (2.2.539-540inserted into The Murder of Gonzago , and a quick performance will be enough to rouse Claudius and ultimately prove once and for all that the new king is the murderer of old king Hamlet. But why deploy such a complicated plan with a performance and an audience? Why not confront Claudius directly? Hamlet chooses to present  before the court because he believes in the effective power of theatre and performance. This performance attempts to stage the hidden guilt of Claudius as well as Gertrude; when Claudius and Gertrude view the embodied actors re-enacting past events and when they listen to the actors speaking about sensitive and significant topics like re-marriage, they will make the connections that these characters resemble them and that these events seem familiar.  This might seem like an overly-complicated plan, but at the same time, it has subtlety in that viewers without a guilty conscience react. Furthermore, the courtly audience serves as a preventing Hamlet from having to  And, ) from Claudius and the court. Claudius wants to end this drama, but we as an audience of scholars and critics want the drama of Hamlet to continue. 2  Thus, countless performances, dozens of film adaptations, famous and controversial scholarly debates1 and considerable critical analysis all suggest that Hamlet has/will remain(ed) present and relevant within the continuing scholarly and performance history and within many cultural contexts. Much of this relevance can be attributed to Hamlet, its many brilliant soliloquies, and its structure overall, but I believe its unique and sustained moments of self-reflexivity are what make it stand out amongst other Shakespeare plays. When using the -Hamlet the play reflect on theatre and the play itself. A paper of this length and scope would not be able to look at all of its moments of self-reflexivity, so I focus largely on one of the most  In doing so, I aim to add to this history of the play by analyzinaudience response by deploying a revitalized view of  theater characters and thereby allow the audience to escape frosubject of the play politically  Mother Courage and Her Children use actual signs and other theatrical techniques to make audiences intellectually engage with the devastating effects of war (as opposed to personally identify with Mother Courage as a -within-a-play can function in a similar way, or more so, how it uses self-reflexivity to perhaps not directly engage its audience politically,                                                            1 While I will do a brief literary review of criticism later, great merits of the drama,  invigorated scholarly discussion with his famous most certa). 3  -within-a- and outside of Hamlet which brings to attention the line between performance and reality.   To further complicate and explore these ideas, particularly the thematic concerns of performance and reality in relation to cultural politics and audience response, I apply them to a recent Bollywood Haider (2014). As Ajay Gehlawat explains in the introduction to Reframing Bollywood: Theories of Popular Hindi Cinema, the term epithet or mimicry that is at the same time a response and dismissal, shorthand for the Hindi film industry, a hybrid element that celebrates its difference, etc. (xii). Ultimately, I use the term, like Gehlawat, to reHaider, blends theatrical and cinematic elements, and it places Hamlet in an embattled Kashmir in 1995. In the film, the titular character Haider (Hamlet) returns to Kashmir to investigate the death of his follows the arcs of the major characters within the original play, but the political issues in Hamlet (the impending threat of Fortinbras and Claudius surveillance) are transferred to the complex politics of Kashmir. Denmark as a prison is transposed to Kashmir as a prison. Gehlwat also notes that theorists interpretation of the Bollywood film due to various reasons, including the alleged lack of such an ing this interpretation and revealing how Haider twists and complicates it can be important in understanding the films complex cultural politics (xiii). Whether or not it was intended, the film and the play lend themselves to a 4  Brechtian reading, whereby the distancing or alienation of audiences (at several levels) is crucial to understanding the thematic conflicts between action and acting, and between performance and reality.  dancers, singers, puppets, and metaphorical verses uniquely blends alienation with identification and ultimately (literally and figuratively) expands the intended audience/viewers of this performance. Now, the audience is Claudius/Khurram, Gertrude/Ghazala, the people outside the  and Kashmir, and indeed, all of us who have now witnessed the civilian disappearances. Thus, in using these techniques that blend alienation and identification that  Haider forces us to confront the cultural politics of its moment and it reveals that Shakespeare can be a distant and yet still close lens to view geopolitical conflicts like terror, violence, and surveillance. Furthermore, Haider deploys its politics the reaction of a laugh from Claudius/Khurram makes us rethink the power relations between the characters. This context makes visible the surveillance state and prison that is Denmark in which Hamlet is being watched and manipulated, and it emphasizes the blurry line between action and acting.   There is a reason that we continue to return to Hamlet in both criticism and performance, and in this paper, I aim to examine both in three parts: (1) a critical history of the play and an  criticism and within Hamlet itself; (2) a discussion of theatre and audience response within and outside of the play, focusing on Brechtalienation theory; (3) an evaluation of Shakespeare on film as a field of study, and a close 5  reading of  (the song and dance number,  in Haider. Within the (particularly a complication of these ideas) allow us to revitalize responses to Hamlet. A focus on the formalistic, self-scene within the original play and within the film adaptation will show how both texts invite the characters and the audience to evaluate meanings and power politics inside and outside the play/film itself. The layers and juxtaposition of familiarity and unfamiliarity  closeness and distance  provide a key to understanding the play and its intricacies. Ultimately, this paper  Haider into conversation with other scholarly criticism on Hamlet and it shows how adaptations in general and  in particular can help us to engage with other cultures, to reexamine and rethink the original Shakespearean text in terms of power relations and action/acting, and to examine the intersection of art, reality, and performance in our own lives.   6  CRITICAL HISTORIES OF HAMLET The time is indeed Hamlet inside and outside of the play since creative and scholarly attention to the play continues to be popular today. To a certain extent, the critical Hamlet, especially in terms of the reliance on in-depth character analysis and continuing critical debates. Overall, argues in Murder Most Foul, the staging and criticism of the play go hand in hand, presenting Hamlet In other words, Hamlet criticism reflects trends in literary criticism more broadly, and these literary trends reflect the self. Thus, during the Enlightenment, Hamlet became a way to think about morality. For example, in 1775, Mrs. Elizabeth Griffith wrote an entire book, The plays, including Shakespeare not only affords documents to real life, but supplies them even to the mimic one; as may be seen in the Scene, where he makes Hamlet give instructions to Actors how they should perform their parts. But as there is no moral to be extracted from the passage0). While Griffith wants to discuss the passages that can teach the reader lessons on morality are the only ones worthy of extensive quoting and discussion. In the Romantic era, Hamlet became the melancholic, philosophic Romantic hero, a figure who continues to inhabit many popular conceptions of the play. Samuel Taylor Coleridge argued that Hamlet had ,rom its healthy balance, is forever occupied with the world within 7  him and abstracted from external thiEllis and Mills 249). continued but shifted around the turn of the 20th century when Hamlet became psychoanalyzed. Critics like Ernest Jones in Hamlet and Oedipus (1955), admits that in his argument, he will then explain Within this specific critical practice, Jones believes that he can indeed psychoanalyze Hamlet like a patient. While the perception of the play has been deeply influenced by these moments of  in the 18th and 19th centuries, other more recent criticism has focused on a diverse set of interests, proving that Hamlet continues to be relevant today. Many look at Hamlet in terms of feminism, focusing on the agency (or lack thereof) of Ophelia and the importance of Gertrude within the drama2. Others, like Stephen Greenblatt analyze the religious elements of the play and the importance of purgatory, sin, and even alchemy3. Within the past 50 years, scholars have also applied Hamlet to modern concerns and knowledge including corporate culture4 and cognitive science5.  Finally, scholars like Margaret Litvin and Tracey Sedinger analyze Hamlet in the Middle East and the re-historicization of the play6, respectively. Litvin and others look to plays like                                                            2 Suffocating MothersDistracted Subjects all look at the play from a feminist theoretical perspective.  3 Hamlet in Purgatory looked at the play through religion, as did John Gillies in Hamlet 4 Hamlet Shakespeare in Charge, shows how to apply Hamlet to business culture and office politics. 5 Hamlet  6 Margaret Litvin writes about the influence of the play in Middle East in and the Problem of Hamlet-Hamlet without Hamlet and ithin Practicing New Historicism.  8  Sulayman Al-The Al-Hamlet Summit, for example, to look at adaptations that focus on non-western political contexts. The Al-Hamlet Summit adapts Hamlet and places it in an unidentified modern Middle Eastern country in order to reflect on the politics of the Arab world, and to explore the politics involved in dictatorship, arms deals, and Islamic extremism. To some Hamlet to gain attention and a larger audience, but with this larger audience, they are able to use the original political themes of the Shakespearean play and adapt them to reflect on important modern concerns.  Thus while much of the recent criticism around Hamlet more broadly focuses on these more contemporary concerns, m more specifically remains within debates about whether or not Claudius sees the dumb show. s after both the dumb show and the many lines of the altered Murder of Gonzago (3.2.261), and thus, we have the following questions: why does Hamlet (and Shakespeare) a dumb show and altered Murder of Gonzago (with a beginning section that focuses on dialogue about love and re-marriage and a second section that introduces the character of Lucianus)? Why does Claudius not react after he sees the dumb show? It would seem like only one would be necessary, and the pantomime of the dumb show certainly mirrors the ghost story we get about old King What Happens in Hamlet insists that Claudius did not actually see the dumb show, or others, like Harley Granville-Barker and Thomas 7                                                            7  9  need to find the truth by deploying multiple traps8. Other scholars like Sara Ruth Watson believe that evidence about Elizabethan theatrical practices can help us find the answer. She argues that based on performative practices of Twelfth Night,  be no question whether or not the king sees and understands the dumb-Claudius appears unfounded, or at the very least reaching9.  A few scholars  focus on the form and intricately related to the larger playmakes the bold claim that nearly everyone e learns anything from it; instead, he ). Both of these papers seek to move us out of the tired argument, either by focusing on something practical like staging, or by looking at the scene in a somewhat new way.  but I think a helpful focus for this argument is to look at Hamlet as an adaptor and improviser (his manipulation of form, and his intents in adaptation) alongside the audience response. If we view Hamlet as adaptor, we might say that he struggles to keep enough                                                            8 Other critics try to explain Claudius seeing e spoken- in unusual ways. (367). Thus, Claudius remaining silent during the dumb show actually proves his guilt.  9 the theatre-in-the-round or arena Twelfth Nightof the play scene in Hamlet-478). 10  and so adds the dumb show to make his point clearer. He is preoccupied with action and acting, (in relatiThe repetition of both dumb show and spoken-word play may be necessary to spur Claudius, but another explanation, is that words combined with action  to closely approximate   when Lucianus speaks and pours po does Claudius finally react. A close reading of this scene will show that analyzing the audience response and formalistic elements of the scene can refocus and revitalize this  Within Hamlet, The Mousetrap functions as an adaptation and as a moment of self-reflexivity. The play-within-the-play is commonly thought of as two separate parts: the dumb show and the Murder of Gonzago s father. The latter includes the spoken-word exchange between the Player King and Player Queen which problematizes the re-with his murderous intentions, seems outside of this earlier exchange about love. Cumulatively tells the tale of how Claudius  wife), and that while he the king was life.75). The story is relatively simple, but the inclusion of both dumb show and Murder of Gonzago s how Shakespeare uses this structural element of the play-within-the-play Hamlet.  11  Both Hamlet and Shakespeare create/present a performance that forces the audience  and court within the play  to meta-reflect on their experience. For Claudius, this reflection is supposed to occur when he realizes that both the show and the play are commentary on his own actions and life. In the dumb show, the stage directions reveal that there is a pseudo- Enter [Players as] a king and a queen, the queen embracing him and he her. He takes her up and declines his head upon her neck. He lies him down upon a bank of flowers. She seeing him asleep leaves him. Anon come in [a Player as] another man, takes off his crown, kisses it, him. The queen returns, finds the king dead, makes passionate action. The poisoner with some three or four [Players] come in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner woos the queen with gifts. She seems harsh awhile but in the end accepts love. (3.2.128[1-11])  Specific objects and calculated actions make it difficult to not interpret this performance as the note royalty, embraces suggest love, the bank of flowers resembles an orchardear reveal the unique circumstances of death, and the gifts bought denote In all, these ten lines of stage direction10 that Hamlet wants Claudius to see these connections. Then again, without direct words/verse, this performance can also be interpreted looser adaptation. Thus there is the possibility of familiarity and identification, but it relies on                                                            10 Being stage directions, it is unlikely that these lines are the exact phrasing of Shakespeare, but this then uniquely and symbols) conveyed the ghost story for the audience. Whoever added the language of the stage direction understood its intent and thus in performance, it was clear. Furthermore, Eric Rasof extant dramatic manuscripts have established that stage directions are much more likely to be authorial [more broadly conceived as that of the theater and playwright] than additions by  12  interpretation of gestures, purposefully allowing Claudius and Gertrude to only react in a way if they in some way identify or connect with what has been enacted.  There is little evidence of how this the dumb show affects Claudius, Gertrude, or the court since we only get the response of Hamlet and Ophelia:  OPHELIA: What means this, my lord?  HAMLET: Marry, this munching mallico! It means mischief. OPHELIA: Belike this how imports the argument of the  play. (3.2.129-133)  response reveals confusion  either confusion over the contents of the vague explanation suggests that she (and perhaps other audience members of the court) would part As the audience of Hamlet sees it, the dumb show uniquely and transparently shows the process of move back in the narrative. As the scene begins, we see people watching a play  indeed, something we are also doing. Then we see a pantomime that clearly enacts the ghost story that we earlier heard, so we are taken back to the lines where the ghost revealed the details of his murder. We are pushed back even further, howevthus are transported back even earlier in time before the beginning of the play. Thus, our experience is not linear, but fluid as we easily slip into different moments. There are traces of the 13  old, and moments of familiarity, but seeing the ghost story in pantomime also condenses serious actions in potential silly frivolity.  In this way, both the audience and Claudius are invited to see moments of similarity and difference, and to question the moments and purpose of this beginning show.  earlier moments (actual actions for Claudius and earlier stories for the audience of Hamlet), Shakespeare and Hamlet then present us with the adapted Murder of Gonzago. The spoken-word part of the play (The Murder of Gonzago with additional lines from Hamlet) starring the Player King and Player Queen in the beginning, and Lucianus near the end, also causes of Hamlet to meta-reflect, but in different ways that add more layers to the kaleidoscopic experience of the play; we repeatedly move between similarity and difference, closeness and distance. Stylistically, this second away from the normal iambic pentameter of Hamlet; the rhyming couplets frequently deviate from the original rhythm, and they open with allusions to Greek mythology. Generally, the selection of The Murder of Gonzago that we consists of long speeches about love and marriage interspersed with (seemingly) over-dramatic  (3.2.171-172). Thus, for the audience of Hamlet, the lines in this second part of -within-the-play, but also as formal, over-dramatic play-within-a-play. The format of rhyming couplets and the inclusion of dramatic lines take the Hamlet quite distinct. All of these elements distance the audience of Hamlet from the play, and they present an opportunity for the audience to meta-reflect on Hamlet and theatre since we so clearly -within-a-play. 14  also has clear intentions for the audience within Hamlet; specifically, it has two different audiences in mind: Gertrude and Claudius. The first part with the Player King and Player Queen Claudius and the audience of Hamlet with minima(3.2.148,152,153). The following dialogue on love and marriage, however, focuses its audience be accurst. / None wed the secabout remarriage  rather than on -179). clear desire to direct and control the interpretation of the play, and here as it concerns his mother. different from the previous dialogue about love and marriage) shifts the audience to Claudius. In are aimed to implicate and gain reactions from both Claudius and Gertrude.  It might seem a bit reaching to say that Hamlet has carefully planned this structure and its effects, but we do know that he has inserted a few lines and guided the players earlier, so it is reasonable to infer that at quite a few aspects were intentional.  well as Claudius and Gertrude. many ways (as the editors of the Arden edition explain elf-control, or her 15  there no offenbeginning to make connections (3.2.226-227). Thus, by interspersing commentary from Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius, and Gertrude, Shakespeare again presents moments where we as viewing/reading audience are signaled to notice that we are watching a play and that our experience of this play may inform how we perceive the current drama of Hamlet. y that references Richard III, which again disrupts the viewing experience of the audience. Thus, in different ways, Claudius, Gertrude, and audience  in content, dialogue, and action, Claudius can see parallels with his own past wrongdoings, and in form and style the audience of Hamlet meta-reflect on Hamlet the play, theatre, and created representations of art.   16  SELF-REFLEXIVE THEATRICALITY AND AUDIENCE RESPONSE TO HAMLET  Hamlet where Shakespeare and Hamlet want the audience to reflect on the play, but there are many other moments where the a/effects of theatre and performance madness   after he hears the ghost story (1.5.170). As the audience sees it, Hamlet tells Horatio that he is goiin the later scenes, (when we hear from Ophelia that Hamlet when we hear Hamlet himself ou are a fishmonger,) we know that Hamlet is actually performing (2.1.91, 2.2.170-171). He is putting on an act. The audience can thus meta-reflect on acting as well as the blurred line between a created fantasy of art and a lived reality.  functions as a similar self-reflexive moment when he, acting as director ansaw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness (3.2.4-8). Hamlet is instructing the players -be unrealistic and less believable. This suggests that he  theatre. the audience would be seeHamlet, this moment breaks the immersive experience. We see concerns about the actions of the players primes us for not only their later performance, but also for the performance of the other characters within Hamlet the play. Now, we will be see if the Hamlet   17  One might then expect that Hamlet would guide the players in a play selection that allows them to display their refined acting, but despite these earlier instructions, Hamlet has the players  the ting; with only pantomime and movement, the queen character is supposed to m(3.2.128[.7]. Furthermore, the  as well as the long speeches about love within the Player King and Player Queen also suggest -harken back to instructions and we as audience ultimately see the artificial and stylized forms of theatre. The next step would be to ask: Why focus on these formal and stylistic elements of the play? The debate on wplay-within-the-unsuccessfule must be something more happening here. As I suggested earlier, Shakespeare wants to emphasize the importance of both word and action. It is not until Lucianus, and speaks that Claudius reacts. The effects of theatre within Hamlet, however, move be Shakespeare often displays how theatre can affect both the body and mind.  For example, and body and indicates that he has heard how  just by the mere viewing of the drama  been so (2.2.524-527).  Hamlet believes Claudius will instance of combined 18  to speak to Hamlet, we can see that he also believes in the power of storytelling and the possible elicit a great deal of fear (1.5.15-own murder, however, has its own strong effects as it makes Hamlet vow to wipe away all other things within his mind and never forget the tale. Of course, we as audience can never seem to forget the tale either, perhaps because Hamlet as a drama has had similar effects on us.  A look into Elizabethan audience response for Hamlet is challenging because most of the research relies on speculation. As Thomas Cartelli notes, Elizabethan audience responses to Thus, conversations behind Elizabethan audience response often rely on broader concepts of English society in general. I  that it is less important to study the classes to attend plays, what effects plays might have had on them, and what such people brought -48).  Looking at the Elizabethan audience response, thus, might seem challenging or problematic, and the application of a mucalienation  seem even more challenging, but the self-type of interpretation. Thus, I by no means seek to argue that Hamlet completely operates as a Brechtian play or that applying Brecht to Hamlet turning to Brecht and his conceptions of the verfremdungseffekt, alienationcan help us think through our ideas behind this critical scene of the play.  19  self-reflexiveness, I have focused on revealing how formalistic elements  dialogue, setting, plot, etc.  intentionally bring t we are watching a play, or that have reflected meanings or ideas that bring the audience back to earlier moments in the text. To say it another way, these moments of self-reflexivity wall11 and enter the audience into a meta-dialogue between themselves and the play  one exaThese A Short Organum for Theatre,that  one which allows us to recognize its subject, but at the same time makes it  that employs the distancing effect will give the audience enough familiarity to recognize the character, but enough unfamiliarity to avoid any loss of context of the story or the production that includes politics.  I have shown that in Hamlet the play, Hamlet seems to use similar theatrical strategies as Brecht to force King Claudius to recognize and reflect on his crimes. By employing the The Murder of Gonzago, Hamlet blends the familiar with the unfamiliar, creating a before e murder. We as the audience of Hamlet are alienated on a different level, since we are forced to meta-reflect on the play-within-a-play and the effects of theatre more broadly. We recognize the previous ghost story in adaptation and reflect on earlier moments of the play as the scene unfolds; furthermore, we are                                                             11 Of course, the fourth wall was a 19th century convention attributed to Diderot, but I want to emphasize this anti-illusionistic intent to include the audience within the performance instead of acting like they are not there.  20  Brecht actually has a unique relationship with Shakespeare. Margot Heinemann notes A Short Organum for the Theatre is different from that in Messingkauf, the first more concerned with dissociating Brecht from Shakespearean tradition, the second with emphasizing the power of Shakespearean dramaturgy and how much can still be learned and ther than this revealing a confused interpretation of Shakespeare, practices with their anti-illusionistic, self-reflexive qualities were something to be studied, re-conceptualized, and to great extents, admired.   Brecht even discusses Hamlet in explaining how to employ the distancing effect in drama, and he suggests that productions of plays from earlier time periods are one way to reflect on the exposition demanded by the entire episode; and this is where the theatre has to speak up decisively for the interests ). Alienation can happen in different forms, but using an older drama to reflect on current politics should be demanded by current theatre. As highlight a different aspect of the contradiction, even with little or nothing added or changed in the text, to engage a modern ain which I am writing  the criminal ruling classes, the widespread doubt in the power of reason, continually being misused  I think that [Hamlet as seen as a story in an age of warriors] might -202). In a post WWII Germany, Brecht believes that examining the war and geopolitics of the drama is one way of reading the play and one way to  Brecht explains how to do this in practice: 21  If we ensure that our characters on the stage are moved by social impulses and that these differ according to the period, then we make it harder for our spectator to identify himself with themplay works dealing with our own time as though they were historical, then perhaps the circumstances under which he himself acts will strike him as equally odd; and this is where the critical attitude begins. (190)   Thus, historicism and time are one way to employ the distancing effect since people like the 1940s German citizen will find it difficult to completely empathize and identify with a character like Hamlet, since he is a member of the royalty of Denmark in the 1600s. This difference in space and time is important, and his goals are to inspire a critical response. Brecht does not want passive viewers of theatre  he wants to employ techniques to affect the mind and perhaps even the body (in terms of activism and protest).  Thus, for employing the distancing effect, then, are political. He believes that these techniques will help to create a critical response that moves beyond something 12. Brecht releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field ). Here, Brecht is connecting theatre with something bigger  with a field of human relations  and he wants viewers of drama to take these thoughts and feelings and use them to transform the field, or in other words, to spur social or political action. If Hamlet is staged in a modern context, then the audience can recognize                                                            12ften applied to analysis of theatre since his work, The Poetics, is one of the first that discusses the different forms and purposes of drama. Aristotle defines catharsis as a tempering of emotions through the reproduction of pity and fear in the audience. For example, we as viewers/readers of Hamlet should experience catharsis when we finally see Hamlet kill Claudius at the end. , is merely the purgation of emotions; it does not necessarily invite further audience thought or action.  22  important themes like the surveillance state within the drama and not get lost empathizing with Hamlet as a character.  morally or politically transformaClaudius, but not necessarily purge this guilt. We as viewers of Hamlet may experience catharsis, but I believe that the multiple moments of self-reflexiveness and distancing make this the threat of war in Europe (at the end of the play, we are left with Fortinbras to take over).  I will later loosely apply Brecht Haider, in particular, but provisionally, we can say that Bhardwaj is using the story within Hamlet reflects the cultural politics of Kashmir in the 1990s. At many moments, Bhardwaj employs filmic techniques that function like distancing effects. for the theatre, but applying them to film, particularly Haider can help us better understand and More broadly, however, I want to first show how adaptation and Shakespeare on film as a field provides perhaps the most impactful and relevant space to engage with Brecht and Hamlet.     23  THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF ADAPTATION: SHAKESPEARE ON FILM AND HAIDER   The rise of Shakespeare on film largely coincides with the rise of film more broadly, with directors and actors always interested in presenting their own performance and interpretation of the plays. The earliest Shakespeare film coincided with the earliest availability of the camera: in 1899, a scene from Sir Herbert King John was filmed13. Earlier Shakespeare films were largely documentations of actual theatrical performances, but as film as a medium grew, so did Shakespeare on film, with the British cinema  as early as the 1930s14. Hamlet version being that of Laurence Olivier in 1948. By the mid-twentieth century and the dawn of sound, Shakespearean films began to travel, and Hamlet reach extended beyond the United Kingdom to India, Japan, and Russia; for example, some Hamlet films include The Bad Sleep Well (1960, JapanHamlet (1964, RussiaThe Banquet (2006, China). The Bad Sleep Well is an adaptation,15 and indeed, more recent Shakespeare films move back and forth between a filmed interpretation of the play and a large adaptation that only  In terms of criticism, Shakespeare on Film is a relatively new field. The first full-length study of Shakespeare on Silent Film in 1968                                                            13 prompted William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson and Walter Pfeffer Dando to record four scenes; only the scene of King  14 Romeo and Juliet (1936).  15 into Russian, whereas otHamlet into a film about Japanese business culture and corruption. 24  (Shaughnessy 5). Earlier criticism focused on fidelity to the text, and many scholars had to battle the discussion over whether Shakespeare on film was a worthy field to study. In the introduction to her book, Shakespeare on Film, from 2005, Judith Buchanan notes, however, that now: Sbeen sanctioned as part of the legitimate performance history of a Shakespeare play. As a subject, it has carved out a place for itself both within Shakespeare performance studies as part of the history of the ongoing life of a play, and within film studies as part of the debate about adaptation and the encounter between differing cultural registers. (2)  Like any emerging field, it can be difficult to find an appropriate place within previous scholarship, and Shakespeare on film is unique because it has ties to performance studies, English, cultural studies, and other fields. Shakespeare on film is interdisciplinary because, as Shaughnessy explains, there is an issue of language and form: a new relationship is forming -illusionist, non-realist, extravagantly rhetorical early modern theatre and a predo(3). Of course, theatrical performance is going to be different that film, but Shakespeare in particular wrote plays that were anti-illusionistic and, as I have argued, purposefully self-reflexive and meta-theatrical, so transforming that into film can be challenging.   BhardHaider which uniquely adapts the scene into a musical performance that blends the real with fantasy, and deploys self-reflexive, anti-illusionistic elements. This these ideas by looking at a play-within-a-play-within-a-film. Most cinematic versions of Hamlet omit the dumb show and/or present thHamlet that simply shows a filmed scene of Claudius and court watching the players perform within the castle). Many of the cinematic versions of the play also originate from the United States or Europe. Thus 25  HaiderMark Burnett notes in his recent book, Shakespeare and World Cinema, that there has been little results the plays are translated into the -English adaptations of Shakespeare d adaptations of Shakespearetraces of plot, character, style, and/or form. Haider Maqbool [Macbeth] and Omkara [Othello]) certainly utilizes this cultural capital, but uses it to explore specific cultural politics. Haider moves Hamlet into an embattled India-administered Kashmir in 1995. While the film still follows the basic story of Hamlet (and maintains many of the emotional arcs of the characterspartition of India, Pakistan and India fought over Kashmir and, as Athar Parvaiz (a journalist based in Srinagar) notes, "Enforced disappearances is one of the many repressive measures (like Indian, I'm also a patriot, I also love my nation. So I won't do anything which is anti-national. But what is anti-Thus, in presenting both an adaptation of Hamlet and a film that speaks to the cultural politics of Kashmir, Bhardwaj transforms the character of Hamlet into Haider (played by Shahid Kapoor): a young student and poet who returns home to Kashmir to investigate the disappearance of his father. Gertrude becomes Ghazala (played by Tabu) and Claudius becomes Khurram (played by Kay Kay Menon). Much like Hamlet, Haider becomes concerned about the burgeoning relationship 26  disappearance, he seeks vengeance and the death of Khurram. Also similar to Hamlet, Haider realizes that Kashmir (the adapted Denmark) is a prison.  Haiderscene more specifically reveals how Bhardwaj deploys distancing techniques that alienate the audience and ultimately leave us with the possibility to critically engage with the politics of the drama. them for film can be edifying because they aid in explaining the complex negotiations of reality and fantasy, closeness, and distance that Haider deploys. As Brecht suggests, Bhardwaj presents this early modern play as an adaptation that can create important connections and relevancy for a modern audience. An important note, however, is that while Haider often deploys stylistic elements that distance the audience, the film also maintains realism in many scenes, and thus the film shifts back and forth between alienation and familiarity. For example, in between the musical numbers, the film follows a more traditional approach of including things like establishing shots of locations, close-ups of characters speaking colloquially (as opposed to singing and dancing), and longer sequences that do musical number editing. as a critical base that is then complicated and twisted by Haider.  -reflexiveness are employed at many levels in Haider. Song and dance are employed as distancing effects, but so too is the frame of Hamlet as narrative. Hamlet as a narrative is familiar to the postcolonial audience, and thus while familiar Hamlet exists within the early modern period. Then again, the story is adapted to directly relate to the civilian disappearances, 27  and names, dialogue, and setting of the original play are all changed to better reflect Kashmir in the 1990s. And songs that are self- mentions ideas and words from the previous song and other songs are familiar poemsinto a meta-reflection on form. In this way, Haider, creates a tug-of-war between familiarity and unfamiliarity, distancing us at one moment, but bringing us back in at the next. In the end, however, Haider, adeptly presents its message and critique of the political climate, and it   in Haider is adapted as a performance of a Bollywood dance singer, a group of accompanying singers and dancers, puppets, drums, and a striking backdrop of the snow-covered ruins of the Martand Sun Temple in Kashmir (see fig. 1).  One key intervention that Bhardwaj deploys in this scene is the expansion of the audience.  Unlike Hamlet with the limited audience of Claudius and small court, in Haider, the audience is bigger; the audience now includes a large group of Kashmiri citizens watching the performance within the film. Beyond that, however, is the fact that the audience is extended even further to the people of Kashmir and India and to all viewers who have now witnessed the injustices of the civilian disappearances. In many ways, this suggests that they may be complicit in the crimes, but it only definitively presents them as witnesses. Hamlet the play includes meta-reflection, but there is not a condemning of the viewing audience as complicit murderers. In Haider, we are asked to take a stance and to engage with these issues more critically; we must reflect on whether we are complicit and whether some sort of action should be taken.  28  Figure 1: Haider played by Shahid Kapoor performs with dancers before Khurram, Ghazala, and audience. Similar to that of Hamlet, Haider  is purposefully differentiated from the rest of the film by the use of many formal elements including puppets, dancing, a metaphoric song. Within films, musical numbers will always stand out because their form is different from that of spoken dialogue, but within Haiderscene is presented as a performance (not just a musical number that exists within the context of the film) and it employs the most deliberately dramatic and theatrical effects. A multitude of wide shots are included in the performance, displaying the vast size of the audience, the extraordinary ruins, and the added musicians and dancers. Many of these effects are anti-illusionistic and deliberately depart from any associations with reality, and due to this, this moment in the film arguable stands out as the highlight with its  imitation. Three puppets are included in the scene (see fig. 2): two smaller puppets representing 29  larger threat of the military, corruption, death, and other threats to the people of Kashmir). Instead of the embodied dumb show, we have the dumb show through puppets and it is presented . Puppets in themselves are very anti-illusionistic, and these puppets specifically alienate because they border the line between being recognizable and unfamiliar. The two smaller puppets are just a bit smaller than real people, and their faces are gold masks but they wear normal clothing and clearly resemble a human form. They never look completely human, but as the dancers move the puppets, the puppets become ghostly imitations. In contrast, the large puppet is completely exaggerated, and only somewhat human-One side of the hsee a very different face: dark, red, and devilish. Quite deliberately we are shown that Khurram is two-faced, and one of these two faces is quite evil.  Figure Haider.  30  the meaning of this representation moves beyond just  He had the injured man imprisoned And tied him up like a slave Took him to the Jhelum bridge And threw him to a watery grave16  These lyrics reference the bodies of the disappeared that are thrown in the Jhelum river; they also has stained the waters of the river. Thus we have a self-reflexive moment here where the audience is invited to remember the earlier song. As these associations and meanings begin to and through the use of puppets, Khurram sees an eerie representation of all of those who have been thrown into the river. Quite literally, at one moment the smaller puppet representative of   Khurram and the audience because Bhardwaj includes many shots where the camera takes on the point of view of Khurram and Ghazala and I believe this is one of the most effective techniques that Bhardwaj deploys, as well as one that uniquely works for film. Thus, both Khurram and the audience are directly addressed as when Bhardwaj cuts multiple times to these close-(see fig. 3).                                                            16 These are translated lyrics that are included as subtitles is in Hindi. Haider predominately uses Hindi and Urdu. While these translations are reliable, I will nonetheless focus my analysis less on form and more on images and concepts that the lyrics contain. 31  During the end of the song, this anti-illusionistic direct address occurs concurrently with lyrics that warn Ghazala and that suggest that disappeared) will be alive. Haider sings: He is alive, he will be living The criminal now cannot hide [repeated]    This first line is as much of a hope as it is a demand. Haider earlier mentioned watery graves, but he also hopes that his father is alive. And if his earthly body is no longer present, Haider suggests will memory but also demands of Khurram and the others involved in this conflict to ensure that the disappeared will not be killed.   Figure 3: Haider looks directly at Khurram and film audience.  Haider insists that the criminal cannot hide any longer, and after this performance with the stand-in puppets, suggestive lyrics, and direct address, it would be hard to deny that the 32  something more direct. This aligns with the metaphorical nature of the song and opens up opportunities for others (re: members of the viewing audience) to join in the conception of ected to Ghazala (since he is  encompass others who might be indirectly involved with the conflict in Kashmir. The use of th du word for the Asian song bird, was a mid-ranking military intelligence official working with troops of the 5 Rashtriya Rifles in Sum-terrorist operations in the hard- Thus, the image and meaning of the nightingale transcends from a simple songbird to an allusion to anti-terrorist operations in Kashmir.  the original idea of poisoning from Hamlet, but this poison is not in a singular ear, but in a tempting unassuming flower. It is not difficult to become caught up in this conflict, but Haidermessage serves as a warning, and the inclusion of multiple point-of-view shots where Haider looks directly at the camera (presumably at Khurram in the audience, but also literally at the viewer of Haider), this message is hard to ignore.  Thus, Bhardwaj uses anti-illusionistic, alienating techniques in adapting  scene from Hamlet to highlight the cultural politics of Kashmir and to critically engage the audience with these issues. This all, however, leaves us with a question: do these techniques work? The answer is not simple. Within Haider, Khurram and Ghazala are clearly 33  affected during the performance as Bhardwaj intercuts scenes of them looking confused, concerned, sad, and remorseful. At the end of the performance, Haider kneels in front of Khurram and we see tears in both of their eyes. And yet, at the next moment, Khurram begins 17between Haider and Hamlet is that in Hamlet, Claudius calls for rather quickly. In the performance history of Hamlet on screen, Claudius usually looks upset and , Claudius is still powerful in terms of being the king but he is genuinely affected by the performance, and in the context of the play, he could be identified as murderer. Later, he orders the death of Hamlet, but not as directly as Khurram.  Here, however, Khurram laughs  his tone implies that he ltimately, Haider has no power to overthrow his position. Khurram still has power and he orders his men to follow Haider and put him in a mental institution. Thus, Haider did catch the conscience of Khurram but this whole endeavor may have been pointless18. But what about the audience of Haider as a film? Are they affected by this performance? It is difficult to say whether the audience of the film was forced to critically engage with this scene, but much evidence suggests that they were indeed affected by it. The film won numerous awards and currently has very positive ratings and reviews,19 but as Vats notes, the                                                            17 as audience might want to answer  18 If this performance makes no impact on Khurram, we might instead read it like Steve Roth, and say that this scene instead reveal 19 As of March 2016, IMDB has over 35.  34  and the film has been banned in Pakistan (surprisingly since the film casts more of a negative light on India). Gossip sites include heated discussions on the ethics of the film, and many articles on Haider include quotes from Bhardwaj defending his idea and his presentation of India. In terms of this evidence, we can say that the film invited debate.  Thus, in many ways, Haider are as well as Bhardwaj (this being the third of BhardwMaqbool [Macbeth] and Omkara [Othello]) elevates the film in terms of viewing interest. The experience of viewing the film as a known adaptation that is not a direct adaptation but that nonetheless has traces of the old, makes its moments of deviation from the original even stronger and more alienating.      35  CODA: FUTURES OF SHAKESPEARE IN GLOBAL MODERNITY I want to end by returning to David history of Hamlet:  it is a kind of mirror, a touchstone, a key, to understanding the collective and individual self (viii).  If this is true, then in what critical and performative moment do we currently exist? What moment does Haider present for us? One possible answer is that we are in With the dawn of the digital age and the internet, we exist in a space where Haider is a brillianbroadens the audience to worldwide viewers. Adaptation is unique because it has elements of both the past and present; Haider keeps only the plot and the main characters from elements that bring it to the present, and that complicate our  allows us to critically engage with the politics and the problems of the present, but it also does not let us forget our past.  In this thesis, I hope to have shown that in critically viewing Hamlet through the lens of  of  particularly in terms of thematic concerns of action/acting, performance and reality, and the surveillance state. This focus on theatre and audience engagement also reveals how Haider importantly uses Shakespeare and Hamlecritically reflect on the cultural politics of Kashmir.  While I only look at one adaptation of  scene in Hamlet, I believe that other adaptations do similar work in utilizing this moment in the play to speak more broadly about the cultural politics of the time and setting. For example, the aforementioned The Bad Sleep Well as well as Michael 36  Hamlet surveillance and the arts in New York20. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (both the play and the film), use Hamlet existentialism (and to dive even deeper into layers of meta-theatricality). Overall, there are many exciting and important possibilities for the continued study of Shakespeare on film. As Shaughnessy notes, Shakespeare on film exists t and studied, [and it] provided the kind of bridge between high and popular culture that, as well as appealing to the new and expanded student constituency, might also offer the means for the academic discipline -7).  Finally, I must note that Shakespeare on film, and Haider in particular offers a lot of pedagogical possibilities in the classroom. Previous literary criticism marks a string of tired debates on whether or not Claudius sees the dumb show, and indeed, almost everyone know the story of Hamlet. Haider, making it relevant but also showing how surveillance, and terrorism. Hamlethe king, but this unique moment of meta-theatricality and self-reflexivness, with its many possibilities for critical engagement and reflection should remain in the consciences of viewing audiences and scholars alike.                                                           20 -within-a-film and makes a meta comment on film as a medium.  37  WORKS CITED38  WORKS CITED   Adelman, Janet. Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare's Plays, Hamlet to the Tempest. New York: Routledge, 1992. Print.  Al-Bassam, Sulayman. The Al-Hamlet Summit: A Political Arabesque. 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