'The first adaption of a complete Shakespeare play entirely in one Australian Aboriginal language, this books track the passionate project of language recovery and restoration into a highly successful mainstage production.
'The play Hecate is a landmark work in both theatre and language restoration. The Noongar language of the southwest of Western Australia is a critically endangered language impacted by settler-colonialism and suppressed until the 1970s. This book contains the complete play, a glossary, and chapters outlining the process of creating and then producing a play onto a professional stage with a Noongar cast working as both language learners and performers, where song became their catalyst to success.
'Premiering to critical acclaim in Perth Festival 2020, Hecate is a ground-breaking and audacious adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth in the Noongar language and from a Noongar perspective. The project in its early stages involved the development and presentation of Sonnets in Noongar, a selection of sonnets as part of the World Shakespeare Festival at the Globe Theatre in 2012 in London. The original cast remain poised to take Hecate to the UK and complete the circle.
'This dazzling project is brought to life in this short book designed to inspire language recovery and restoration in Australia, in a period when serious attention is being paid to many endangered languages. It demonstrates the power of performance to build community strength.' (Publication summary)
'In a world where the Noongar language is spoken by all, a yarn about a Scottish king is retold.
'Join Yirra Yaakin, one of Australia’s leading Aboriginal performing arts organisations for Australia’s first large-scale Shakespeare production entirely in Noongar.
'Hecate, queen of the witches, is usually omitted from productions of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Most directors are unsure of what to do with her. Here, she is at the heart of everything watching as Macbeth strives toward power at any cost, all the while knowing that order must be restored; that Country always trumps human ambition and greed.
'In 1833 colonist Robert Menli Lyon wrote in reference to Noongar people that ‘the whole of each tribe are bards’. This world premiere event puts those words to the test. Having spent years studying and reclaiming their endangered Noongar language, a star ensemble use this audacious adaptation as a springboard to showcase its poetic and expressive qualities.'
Source: Perth Festival.
'“Each night before I walked out onto the stage, I would imagine my mother walking beside me,” says the actor Trevor Ryan in Shakespeare on the Noongar Stage. “We would perform and speak our native tongue as one.”' (Introduction)
'“Each night before I walked out onto the stage, I would imagine my mother walking beside me,” says the actor Trevor Ryan in Shakespeare on the Noongar Stage. “We would perform and speak our native tongue as one.”' (Introduction)
