Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” made its Albania premiere in May 2013 in a special performance by a cast of Albanian actors and renowned American director John Blondell.
TIRANA, July 23 – Albania’s National Theatre performed this week in Macedonia’s Bitola Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in the second edition of Bitola Shakespeare Festival.
Eight theatre companies from all over the world including Russia, Mexico and Turkey participated in the festival which kicked off in July 19 and is scheduled to conclude on July 26.
US theatre director John Blondell, also the director of Albania’s Shakespeare performance, said the Bitola Shakespeare Festival had been inspired by Globe to Globe Festival in London which follows the example of the same festivals in Gdansk, Poland and Craiova, Romania.
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” made its Albania premiere in May 2013 in a special performance by a cast of Albanian actors and renowned American director John Blondell.
Bitola known in Albanian as Manastir is home to the Congress of Manastir building in 1908 where the current modern Latin Albanian alphabet was adopted just before the country’s independence in 1912.
With costume and set design by Macedonia’s Blagoj MIcevski and music by Kosovo’s Trimor Dhomi, the many people’s favorite Shakespeare comedy features an Albania cast of young actors including Ervin Bejleri, Klea Konomi, Vasjan Lami.
“It is the first experience for me to stage Shakespeare in another country in the national language. The reason is because we are searching for an unknown land, or something new and fresh,”
Blondell said before the premiere. “I am in love with this part, it is one of the most beautiful languages ever staged. My goal is to make Shakespeare rather different but especially Albanian,” added Blondell.
Blondell’s cooperation with the Albanian National Theatre emerged last year when Albania participated in London’s Globe to Globe festival with part II of Shakespeare’s Henry VI. Blondell was the director of the Macedonian theatre performing Henry VI’s part III.
Believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596, Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta.
Last year, Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was also staged in a ballet version by Arjan Sukniqi.
