Cross cultural ponderings

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/sept/05/yehey/life/20050905lif4.html 
CULTURE VULTURE 
By Rome Jorge 
Cross dressers and cross cultural ponderings 

"What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea." 
- Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi 

ON September 2, I watched Repertory Philippine’s “Taming of the Shrew” at the On Stage Theater at Greenbelt 1. Despite my lack of sleep, their rendition of the William Shakespeare’s immortal comedy was a raucous romp of unrelenting hilarity that kept me awake and chuckling. What tickled the audience the most was its adherence to one theater convention of Shakespeare’s time; men played all the parts. Women were banished from the stage. To emphasize the point, the actors put on their dresses for the next scene at center stage. 

Just as with traditional Japanese theater, Renaissance men played women’s parts because women on stage were thought to be too alluring and verging on prostitution. 

Here I was, watching a play by Filipinos with English accents set in Italy. It was funny and cool. But it also got me thinking. 

Shakespeare set most of his plays in Italy because it was the seat of culture of the Renaissance, the superpower of Christendom. Did he ever try to write his play in Italian or require his actors to speak with Italian accents? Did he ever feel like a phony for not ever having been to Italy? If he could, would he go, write and cast Italian? Would his play be less the epitome of English literature had he been a stickler for authenticity? 

Shakespeare is regarded as the world’s foremost playwright. But had the British Empire not colonized half the world and stunted and trampled the growth of a hundred cultures, would he still be as highly regarded? Perhaps he would be what Goethe is to English speakers. Or perhaps he would still be more. 

Shakespeare’s latinophilia seems anachronistic and downright ironic today, since his works are regarded as the benchmark of the English literature. As immortal and timeless as his works may be, even his morality seems outdated. 

Updated versions of “Taming of the Shrew” such as the movie Ten Thing I Hate About You have turned the originals’ chauvinistic approach on relationships on its head and become lighthearted treatises on female empowerment, men’s egos and all that we do for love. They have to—because the moral conventions of Shakespeare’s time are insufferable to today’s audience. 

And while the immortal lines from the “Merchant of Venice”—”If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”—are often cited to counter bigotry and anti-Semitism, his stereotypical portrayal of a Jewish moneylender is simply racist. 

Shakespeare wrote his plays at a time when English was not the world’s lingua franca. Back then, their economy and military could not guarantee their culture as the world’s currency. And yet, despite living in a backwater country and burdened with latino philia, he trudged on and forged a new national culture almost single handedly. 

Today at the dawn of the 21st century, at a time when so-called Western civilization totters between avarice and anarchy, Islam is the fastest growing religion, and China is an unstoppable economic superpower on the rise, we are the most Westernized and Christianized Asians. Even in the postcolonial era dominated by Westernization and Christianity, we were second-class citizens at best. In a future dominated by Asia, us westernized Filipinos may not fit in. But even then, in this third-world, backwater country of ours hobbled with colonial mentality, some writer in some shabby room may be forging the defining literature of Filipino culture. Imagine that.