Demythologizing and remythologizing Shakespeare in the context of Bulgarian politics

Abstract

The article reviews three Bulgarian Shakespeare productions performed during the 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 seasons in the context of current developments in the country’s politics to demonstrate how demythologizing and remythologizing Shakespeare on the stage reflect the opposing forces of desperation and hope that characterize Bulgarian society at a particularly difficult moment in its history. Tedi Moskov’s McBeth and Richard III shrewdly explode the mythical inviolability of Shakespeare’s text to demonstrate current political problems, whilst Ivan Dobchev and Georgi Tenev’s Wittenberg Revisited rewrites Shakespeare to explore young people’s urge to break away from a meaningless existence in a decaying state.