To be or not to be

ON APRIL 23 last year, the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth, Dominic Dromgoole and Bill Buckhurst’s new production of “Hamlet” premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe, where the former is also the artistic director.
Since then, the production has been on tour, and aims to visit every country in the world, before returning to the South Bank on April 23 next year, exactly four centuries after the Bard passed away. This is a continuation of the “Globe to Globe” project in the summer of 2012, when the complete canon of Shakespearean plays were staged by 37 companies from 37 countries at the Shakespeare’s Globe, as part of London’s Cultural Olympiad.
Dromgoole says he picked “Hamlet” because “it is so beautiful and so perfect in form and it has been a continually enriching experience for the company. It has ripened on its journey – the actors have grown into it, and it moves and develops for each country and each audience. ‘Hamlet’ is also such a protean play; it can respond in very different ways to different places. In some it has challenged, in others inspired, in yet others consoled. And its themes concerning parents and children, rebellion and depression seem pretty universal.”
The longest of Shakespeare’s plays, this version of “Hamlet” has a running time of two hours and 40 minutes.
“We haven’t cut anything substantial – the play is still ‘Hamlet’, the characters are all there and we haven’t cut it to create a certain slant,” he says.
“In all our companies, we try to balance old hands and new faces – encouraging we hope both an easy familiarity and bold freshness with the way we think about the space and the plays,” he says of his selection of 12 cast members.
“For this ‘Hamlet’ particularly, we were very excited to have people who had experience not just of the Globe, but also who had touring in their blood. We also wanted people for whom this would be their first professional job. We were looking for adventurers and for happy souls, who were as excited by the project as we were”.
The cast is multi-national, a deliberate decision on Dromgoole’s part.
“‘Hamlet’ speaks to everyone, and we wanted audiences across the globe to be able to see themselves in the characters on stage. The different cultures and theatre traditions come together, bringing different ideas. It’s a squad of 12 actors. They share the roles, so they get to take breaks and refresh. Rawiri Paratene, who starred in the film ‘Whale Rider’, is king of the Maori acting scene in New Zealand. He’ll be playing Claudius and Polonius. One of our Hamlets, Ladi Emeruwa, is from Nigeria; the other, Naeem Hayat, is from a Muslim family in East London; and Jennifer Leong is one of our Ophelias. She’s a protegee of Hong Kong’s Tang Shu-wing company, which brought Titus Andronicus to ‘Globe to Globe’ in 2012.”
For her part, Leong is thrilled to be part of the tour.
Reflecting on the ensemble spirit of this tightly knit company of 12 actors and four stage managers, Leong says, “We work with our wonderful stage managers on all the scene changes in the show, playing music and shifting the set around. Usually what we do is determined by the character we play, anyone who hasn’t got an entrance or an exit would be helping with the scene transition.”
Looking back over more than a year of experience, she says, “The show has definitely evolved. While we never stop learning, there is a certain confidence that comes with having performed with the same company for a whole year. Increasingly we have been trying new things, different ways of saying those well-loved lines, holding that stare just a little longer, being more playful. We keep surprising each other, which is lovely.”
“If this sounds like I’m describing a love affair, that’s because it is one!”
“The actors are more comfortable with the play and they have discovered new aspects to their characters they hadn’t found before,” Dromgoole adds.
“They are always learning; more parts, more roles, more languages. The choreography and fight scenes have naturally slickened too. They have all matured personally, and they are finding new ways in which to work with the flexible nature of the tour. The show is lighter, we work with less set and travel more lightly. We have adapted the costumes so they work better in hot countries too.”
By the time they arrive in our hot country – after beginning their Asia leg in Colombo on May 14 then stopping in Male (May 17) and Kuala Lumpur (May 19) – they will have travelled 141,318 kilometres on this historic tour. Thailand will be the 100th country or, to use a snooker term, their century break and that coincides with our special occasion. This performance is part of the celebration of the fifth century of UK-Thailand relations by British Council Thailand and the British Embassy who have joined hands with Creative Industries and Chulalongkorn University’s Department of Dramatic Arts.
Apart from being granted Unesco patronage in recognition of the tour’s engagement with local communities and promotion of cultural education, “Globe to Globe ‘Hamlet’” has also received the Renee Stepham Award for Best Presentation of Touring Theatre from the UK Theatre Awards and The Stage International award 2015. Elsewhere, the New York Times applauded “a production that prizes efficiency, clarity, accessibility and above all energy”, the Mexican newspaper La Jornada called it “bright, light and nimble” and in Austria Die Presse described it as “boisterous, funny, fast-paced and highly musical”.
Dromgoole explains, “Traditionally ‘Hamlet’ doesn’t require too much from music. It’s best classed as one of Shakespeare’s ‘trumpet and drum’ plays and typically denotes entrances and exits of nobility, tension, quick scene changes, and some underscore for the fights. For this tour, all the assumptions changed. The cast was to play all their music live, so to amplify this acrobatic feat we made the music very visible. We like jigs to end plays at the Globe – even the tragedies – and that aesthetic can extend to preshow songs and an interval song, all to share the ensemble as a whole with the audience and to add an air of eventfulness, and context, to the performing of the play.”
This one-evening performance in Bangkok is truly a highlight in our theatre calendar.
The writer thanks Helena Miscioscia and Helen Hillman of the Shakespeare’s Globe for all assistance.
 THE PLAY’S
THE THING
- “Globe to Globe ‘Hamlet’” will be performed at 7.30pm on May 21 at the Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts at Chulonglongkorn University.
- Tickets are Bt1,600 (Bt800 for students). Call (086) 300 2081.
- For more details, check www.Facebook.com/dramaartschulago or GlobeToGlobe.ShakespearesGlobe.com.