From Bosworth to Bombay

Indian adaptations of Shakespeare’s history plays have been underrepresented in scholarship, including versions of Richard III that were printed and staged from the late 1700s to the early twentieth century. This underrepresentation may result from the assumption that Shakespeare’s histories were uninteresting for Indian audiences due to the historical settings of the plays, untransposable in an Indian context. In fact, however, the history plays, and especially Richard III, offer dramatic possibilities that transcend this limited focus on the setting. There were different, enabling ways in which Indian writers interacted with Shakespeare’s texts to create lively adaptations that focused on character, plot, and action. This essay will highlight some of these techniques by focusing on Shakespeare’s Richard III and its two versions written in the early 1900s: Ganga Prasad’s prose translation into Hindi called “Tritiya Richard” (Richard III), and Agha Hashr Kashmiri’s Urdu play Said-e-Hawas (Prey to Desire), written for Parsi theater.