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King Lear to keep clothes on
14/06/2007 16:45 - (SA)
Singapore - King Lear will keep his clothes on in Singapore.
When the Royal Shakespeare Company's production makes a three-night stop in Singapore in July, British actor Ian McKellen, as Lear, will not remove all his clothes during a scene in which the king is forced into exile, Gaurav Kripalani, artistic director of the Singapore Repertory Theatre, said on Thursday.
The scene has been performed nude at Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of the playwright William Shakespeare, Kripalani said, and could have been repeated in Singapore with an R18 rating. R18 restricts the performance to those over 18.
But with more than 1 000 students booked to attend the Singapore performances, Kripalani said the Singapore theatre asked the Royal Shakespeare Company if McKellen could cover up.
They said "it's far more important to them that we're not turning kids away," said Kripalani, whose theatre is presenting the play in conjunction with Esplanade Theatres on the Bay.
"I don't think it's going to lessen the experience in the slightest," he told AFP.
Kripalani said the decision had nothing to do with censorship, and he has had no discussions with authorities on the matter.
Strong conservative core
"If they do it here they just require an R18 rating, which is fine," he said.
Kripalani said the Lear performances, from July 19-21, were 90% sold out.
Singapore is the only Asian stop in the Royal Shakespeare Company's world tour, the local theatre said.
Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore's second minister for information, communications and the arts, said recently that the city-state was undergoing liberalisation but retained a very strong conservative core.
At the Singapore International Film Festival in April, two films were withdrawn from screening after censors made cuts.
The festival said scenes depicting homosexual and group sex were removed from one film, while another involved a scene of a woman in a nun's habit in a sexually suggestive pose.
- AFP
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