I recently found a DVD at the local library near my parents’ home, and it’s one I’ve been hoping to find for some time.  I’d been watching out for the 1965 production, Shakespeare Wallah, because of my general interest in Shakespeare’s work, and also in how former British colonies interact with (and often challenge) the canon of English literature. 

The story line of the Merchant Ivory film is enjoyable enough in its own right.  It sets up the classic love triangles, forbidden romances, parent-child conflicts, interracial issues, and all that good stuff.  And, through the course of the film, we get snippets of Twelfth Night, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Antony and Cleopatra.  Each of those plays nicely intertwines with the various themes being explored in the main story of Shakespeare Wallah.

Lizzie and Sanju’s relationship presents a nice ground on which the drama of the film plays out. Their interaction is interesting to watch from a postcolonial perspective (more on that in another post), as well as from a perspective more interested in the interracial question.  Early on in their relationship, Sanju tells Lizzie that she looks like a typical, nice little English girl, and not like an actress at all.  “With Indian actresses, you can always tell,” he says.  That nicely sets up the sorts of stereotypes the two must deal with (and overcome) before their relationship can progress.

The main obstacles, not surprisingly, arise from a lack of understanding of each other’s cultures.  One conflict centers around Sanju’s sense of “honor,” which Lizzie doesn’t seem to quite understand or sympathize with.  He complains that the way the audiences at her performances talk about her “attacks [his] honor,” but it is clear as the conflict unfolds that this is a concept Lizzie doesn’t really get (whether willfully or otherwise).

The first of Shakespeare’s plays that is featured in Shakespeare Wallah is Antony and Cleopatra. This seems to be a very appropriate drama to introduce us to the romantic conflicts that will unfold between Lizzie and Sanju, and also perhaps clue us in to the politics of colonialism that throw a further wrench into those romantic conflicts.  As Antony is caught between his passionate love for Cleopatra and his perhaps more politically advantageous marriage in Rome, so we see Sanju caught between his loves for two women, one representing the empire and one representing the colonized country of the exotic East.  I’ve seen a fair bit of criticism (and some stagings) of Antony and Cleopatra that likes to draw parallels between the Egypt-Rome relationship and the England-India relationship.  I think Shakespeare Wallah really captures that parallel, and keeps it all in the context of a very conflicted love story, similar to what you see in Antony and Cleopatra.

As the film unfolds and we see Hamlet and Ophelia onstage, and later Othello and Desdemona, it draws our minds along the track that Sanju and Lizzie are treading, in many ways.  Seeing Othello onstage is, of course, another quick way to call questions of racism to the forefront.  The film nicely incorporates all of these texts that are already so familiar to us in a way that helps progress the “new” tale of Lizzie and Sanju (but then, how new is it when it draws Romeo and Juliet so clearly to mind?).  My interest in intertextuality alone makes Shakespeare Wallah a sure hit with me.  All the more when the intertextual references are mainly the plays of the Bard. 

Well, that and Bollywood... but more on that in another post.

© 2007 Shelly Bryant

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