Wang Ning and Shakespeare

There are a great number of similarities between Wang Ning and Shakespeare. Each, in their respective time and place, have sought to bring their culture (and their enthusiasm for that culture) to the world stage. To be compared with Shakespeare seems the very height of flattery, but such is not the intent of this article; rather, the intent here is to see the work of Wang Ning for the complexity that it is, a complexity of process and product on a par with the work of Shakespeare. Wang’s corpus is many things, sometimes a combination of opposites, at times both extensive and focused, objective and opinionated, nuanced and blunt, but always revealing. Like Shakespeare, Wang is acutely attuned to his audience and brings to the global platform a richly vibrant culture. To appreciate fully this work is to be critical and not simply to glorify, to see the missteps and the achievements, the visions and the realities, and to see these both within the contexts of their performance and within larger historical contexts. To do so with Wang Ning, as has been done with Shakespeare, reveals the immense depth and value of this still swelling body of work.