ABSTRACT
A Midsummer Night's Dream has endured so well in all languages of South Asia as to become perhaps the most-performed Shakespearean comedy there, according to one Indian scholar. The preferred medium of transference for Shakespearean drama in India has always been the adaptation, to which the Dream lends itself quite easily. Very few intercultural projects in India have permitted the director to invest as much time as the British Council bountifully allowed Tim Supple. He travelled all over India twice in early 2005, first on a reconnaissance trip during which he also took in several traditional performing arts, and then to conduct workshop auditions with nearly 300 prospects in separate sessions spanning over a month in April and May. It is important for non-Indians to understand the difficulties in communication that arose even at this preliminary stage. Supple's production ultimately utilized seven languages - English, Tamil, Malayalam, Sinhalese, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, to which Rajasthani was added later.
