Double Trust, Double Sense: Absolutism, Amanah, and Political Authority in Dato' Seri (2016), a Malaysian Cultural Translation of Macbeth (c.1606)

This article examines the interrogation of political authority in Shakespeare's Macbeth (c.1606) and Tan Sri Dato' Muhammad Ali Hashim and Omar Ali's Dato' Seri (2016), showing how the latter reworks Shakespeare's play for a modern Malaysian audience. I argue that Dato' Seri engages in a process of cultural translation, transforming Shakespeare's exploration of Jacobean absolutism into a modern commentary on Malaysian leadership. I begin by establishing Macbeth and Dato' Seri 's historical and discursive contexts, as well as considering Muhammad Ali Hashim's unique career and political perspective. I then show how Dato' Seri incorporates and transforms three elements from Shakespeare's play: conceptions of leadership and corruption, the image of the ideal ruler, and the nature of the tyrant. I begin by considering how Dato' Seri converts Shakespeare's crown motif and witches into the lancang kuning (yellow sailboat) motif and the bomoh characters, respectively, shifting the thematic focus from absolutism to amanah (trust). This is followed by the reimagining of Duncan as Raja Jayaputera, with Shakespeare's meek Christian king becoming a benevolent Malay aristocrat. I then turn to Macbeth himself, showing how the Bard's absolutist tyrant is turned into an authoritarian Malay capitalist.