Iqbal Khan

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2019

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“If, with Shakespeare, we can thrill and tease an audience into embracing unknowing, that is one of the most important gifts that we can give,” says director Iqbal Khan. Khan has directed at Shakespeare’s Globe, in the West End, and at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he staged Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra, Tartuffe, and Othello. We talked to Khan about race in Shakespeare’s plays, the math and physics degrees he almost got, and the importance of staging Shakespeare’s complexities and contradictions. Khan is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Folger's Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published September 17, 2019. ©Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Tell the Tale Anew,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical helped from Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Dom Boucher at The Sound Company in London.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Sometimes, when you're lucky, you get a chance to talk with the smartest person in the room.
0:06.0	I got to do that earlier this year, and now you get to do it too.
0:16.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore, the
0:23.1	Fulcher's director. Last March, I moderated a Q&A about Othello at a conference on Race
0:29.3	and Shakespeare at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. On stage with me was someone I knew only
0:35.7	by reputation.
0:40.5	Iqbal Khan, a brilliant theater director.
0:46.2	He's best known for digging into Shakespeare's plays and unearthing all the parts that make them relevant to 21st century audiences.
0:49.6	But the more we talked and the more I learned about him, the more convinced I was that Iqbal Khan
0:55.7	is the perfect guest for Shakespeare Unlimited. He's someone who thinks deeply about Shakespeare
1:01.8	in broad, new, and exciting ways, and he's someone who's bringing the benefits of all that thinking
1:08.3	to theater-goers around the world. Iqbal is also an authentically
1:13.2	generous person who agreed to take time from his directing work to come into a studio in London
1:18.4	and to talk. We call this podcast Tell the Tale a Tale a New. Iqbal Khan is interviewed by Barbara
1:25.7	Bogave. When you begin work on a new production of Shakespeare, what criteria or checklist do you bring with you?
1:34.1	I mean, are there requirements that you feel every performance has to meet or things you feel every production must have to meet your standards?
1:45.1	No, I certainly don't presume to have a checklist to mark against Shakespeare and whether he
1:51.6	qualifies or not. I suppose it's a bit more nebulous than that. I think I have to feel that
1:57.8	when I'm being asked to do a Shakespeare play, that I feel a concrete, visceral
2:05.4	connection to the material now. We change and his plays change as we change and as the world
2:12.8	changes. So when I'm asked to do a play, I read it and I first of all try and just listen to what it detonates in me.
2:23.3	I love that idea and that word that you use detonates because I know as when I go to see a Shakespeare play and I'm sitting in the audience, I'm kind of in the back of my mind, I'm aware of all the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Folger Shakespeare Library, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Folger Shakespeare Library and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.