By Harriet Crawford
Last Friday night saw students’ annual tribute to Shakespeare by Sarajevo University’s Shakespeare Club. Dr Shahab Yar Khan, Professor of English at Sarajevo University, led a novel interpretation of the tragedy King Lear. The British Ambassador Nigel Casey attended the performance – the first time he had ever seen the play on stage – and praised it as “an excellent tradition”. The play, written at the beginning of the 17th century, was reinterpreted for the modern Bosnian context. The audience was encouraged to see parallels in the tension between King Lear’s three disputatious daughters Bosnia and Herzegovina’s devolved structure. As Professor Khan explained, his production showed how “disharmony is represented through language”. In a re-working of the original phrase, the line “These are harsh times when madmen lead the blind”, resonated strongly with the audience. The fragility of their society, seen in differences between territorial leaders and generations, was reflected in the use of the three variants of the local language as well as Shakespearean and modern English. Khan explained that in “a country where there’s no shortage of such lunatics”, King Lear was particularly apt.
Professor Khan, who played the eponymous monarch, led the English Department’s students in an imaginative and passionate performance. Having established the club in 1999, one would hope for nothing less. Professor Khan credited Shakespeare’s King Lear as “the greatest words in human history”.
