Review Feature: Exhibition | Manga Shakespeare | Cartoon Museum | reincarnations | Bard | Artist Ilya

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The Review - FEATURE - EXHIBITION
Published: 28 May 2009

The cover for the Manga version (Detail)

New tragi-comic format for the Bard

A Manga King Lear relocates the story among native Americans, writes
Tom Foot

SHAKESPEARE’S plays keep their place in contemporary culture because they remain relevant to a modern day audience by reinventing themselves in new and exciting ways.
The latest reincarnation finds the playwright’s 400-year-old lines reprinted alongside action-packed illustrations in Japanese Manga comic books.
Unlikely bedfellows they may be, but these abridged adaptations are already proving a hit with the teenagers.
Schools, libraries and even the Globe Theatre – a monument to historical Shakespeare – are stocking the modern- day series.
Manga artist Ilya – who has illustrated King Lear for the series – will be talking about his work at a family event in the Cartoon Museum in Little Russell Street, Bloomsbury, on Saturday afternoon.
He says: “I did King Lear at A-level and I loved it. To me it’s the daddy of all Shakespeare plays. It really it is the biggest tragedy of all: a family is torn apart in front of your eyes. Of course, there is crowd-pleasing violence as well.”
While it may not appeal to everyone’s tastes in this country, Manga has enjoyed phenomenal success in Japan for its ability to communicate raw action and fantasy in a readable style.
“What is important is that they get over Shakespeare to school kids in general, and to reluctant readers. These adaptations really made me understand the stories properly – you just rocket through them.”
Ilya’s King Lear is set in native Indian America and inspired by parallels he saw between the 400-year-old text an James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans.
He says: “Although Lear was written more than 150 years before, the plotline of Shakespeare’s play is almost exactly replicated in the events of the Seven Years War. I’m amazed no one has spotted it.
“In Shakespeare’s original, Lear divides up his kingdom through the marriage of his daughters, between England and France. In our version, Lear is an aged Iroquois chieftain who divides his kingdom between the opposing colonialist forces of England and France. Not only is this entirely accurate to the original play, it is true historical fact.”

• Manga Shakespeare graphic novels, with exhibits, talks and a slideshow presentation is at the Cartoon Museum, 36 Little Russell Street, WC1, on Saturday May 30, 1.30-4pm

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The Lenkiewicz exhibition is stunning from the remarkable St Eustace sculpture to the drawings featuring unicorns, tigers and Elvis! The skeletons and skulls were my particular favourite along with the octopus drowning the Titanic. The surroundings are fabulous; the Pite architecture lends itself so well to the mood. I admit I have a particular fondness for
the building having worked there for 26 years.
J. Trend-Hill

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