Shakespeare Theater to Perform Hamlet in Klingon
"O, what a rogue and peasant … Klingon am I!"
Tuesday, 31 Aug 2010, 10:17 AM EDT
SOURCE
You can hear this and plenty more sci-fi Shakespeare on Sept. 25 when the Washington Shakespeare Company performs an evening of the Bard's work in Klingon, a fictional language from "Star Trek."
As a bonus, George Takei, the actor who portrayed Mr. Sulu on the Star Trek series, is slated to be at the performance.
This will not be the first time company has put its own twist on a classic play. Three years ago the group staged a nude performance of "Macbeth."
"It kind of fits into our company identity, of trying to breathe some fresh air into the classics, of doing something really, really different with them," the company's longtime artistic director, Christopher Henley, told The Washington Post . "It seems a way to say that we're not as reverent as other companies in town."
The Sept. 25 performance in Rosslyn, Va., is an annual benefit for the company. The Arlington, Va.-based group will perform selections from "Hamlet" and "Much Ado About Nothing" in Klingon.
For the Klingon novice, here's a sample of what you can expect: "To be or not to be" will become "taH pagh taHbe."
The Post reported that actors will speak the verse in two languages, English and Klingon. At least partially true to the original work, the lines spoken in each language will correspond to Shakespeare's signature meter – iambic pentameter.
This isn't the first time that a play was translated into Klingon. The Pennsylvania-based Klingon Language Institute published " The Klingon Hamlet " several years ago and has composed a Klingon version of "Much Ado About Nothing." The institute is also helping with the Sept. 25 performance.
In the 1979 film "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," actor James Doohan, who played "Scotty," first devised the basic sound and a few words for the Klingons' own language. The language was further developed by American linguist Marc Okrand , who in 1985 published "The Klingon Dictionary."
Okrand is currently the president of Washington Shakespeare Company's board.
The Sept. 25 performance will rely heavily on the dictionary.
Ben - If I knew how to say break a leg in Klingon, I would. I looked for it on the Klingon Language Institute's website and the closest I came was "Hab SoSlI' Quch" (pronunciation) which means "Your mother has a smooth forehead!" ... I gather this is an insult, so it's probably not appropriate, although you never really know if Klingons wouldn't like it as a motivating chant.
Also, while on KLI's website I learned that you can purchase several works of Shakespeare restored to the original Klingon language, like wIlyam SeQpIr's famous play paghmo' tIn mIS ("The Confusion Is Great Because of Nothing"), so that might be of interest to one or two of you. Ha ha ha!
Shakespeare Theater to Perform Hamlet in Klingon
