Globe to Globe Hamlet tour set for its only Canadian stop
Shakespeare was no snob: he was all about getting theatre to the people — be they queen or commoner — and letting it work its simple magic. While he may have been one of many pop stars in his day, 450 years after his birth one of his most famous characters is creating a stir by going on a record-breaking two-year tour.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre production of Globe to Globe Hamlet, which will leave the Bard’s footprint in every country on the planet, has two shows this Saturday on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in Prescott, Ont., courtesy of the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, its artistic director Ian Farthing and pretty much the entire town.
How did the only professional outdoor theatre in the St. Lawrence Seaway region snag the one Canadian stop on the tour?
“It started last year when I met Tom Bird, the Globe’s executive producer, at the Shakespeare Theatre Association’s international conference,” says Farthing. “When the Canadian High Commission in London mentioned us as a potential stop, he remembered me.”
Farthing got a call from Bird last November asking if his company would be interested in hosting the tour.
“I had one week to get back to the Globe,” he says. “My board said if I could raise $15,000 during that week, they’d trust me to raise enough to go ahead with it.”
Farthing raised the funds and Prescott will make Canada the 28th country the company has visited since the tour started on its home stage on April 23: Shakespeare’s birthday.
In a summer when productions of Shakespeare are being lauded for busting myths about, and breathing new life into, his work, Globe to Globe Hamlet holds a mirror up to the nature of theatre during Shakespeare’s lifetime — as in, no special effects, no elaborate set, just simple storytelling at its best.
In short, it lets his true genius shine through from ground zero.
This epic undertaking is the bright idea of Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director at Shakespeare’s Globe. Floored by the multicultural productions at the Cultural Olympiad Globe to Globe Festival, an ancillary event to the London Summer Olympic Games in 2012, and spurred on by many casual invitations, Dromgoole, his co-director Bill Buckhurst and Bird decided to hit the road.
It’s doubtful whether any production has ever played to a wider range of venues — from Mayan ruins, ancient Greek and Roman amphitheatres and the rainforests of Saint Lucia to the UN headquar- ters in New York City, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing and a Yucatan theatre in Mexico built a year before the play was written. It wraps in 2016 on April 23, which doubles as the date Shakespeare made his exit from this world, at Hamlet’s Elsinore Castle in Denmark.
The cast consists of 12 players of diverse backgrounds, who share roles to allow for breaks and refreshers on their performances. Maori actor Rawiri Paratene of
Whale Rider fame plays both Claudius and Polonius; one Hamlet, Ladi Emeruwa, is from Nigeria, while the other, Naeem Hayat, is an East London Muslim. Jennifer Leong, playing one of three Ophelias, Horatio and Rozencrantz, first came to Dromgoole’s attention in Hong Kong’s Titus Andronicus at Globe to Globe. Tom Lawrence, who plays Horatio, Laertes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, is the only cast member who was in the less extensive 2011 and 2012 tours of the production.
Seeking unique venues around the world and asking people for help getting there — not to mention the slew of visas and inoculations needed — was an arduous task, but Bird credits the enthusiasm and goodwill from all involved for making it seem less daunting.
While Hamlet may have lamented the notion of the town crier delivering his lines while advising his players, the town of Prescott is totally in on the act. It fastforwarded improvements to the amphitheatre and the marina gardens and organized extra parking.
Local businesses are bracing themselves for the surge in visitors. The festival’s average audience of 150 has jumped to 600 per show, with all tickets selling within 50 minutes.
Visit globetoglobe.shakespearesglobe.com for more information. Elizabeth Mitchell is a Toronto writer.