Globe to Globe Hamlet - when the play is really the thing.
On Saturday, April 16th, I had the wonderful opportunity to witness the notorious Globe to Globe Hamlet tour during their only Italian stop. If you’re in the theatre world but have been living under a rock, the tour started in 2014 and it planned to visit every single country on planet Earth in the span of two years, concluding on April 23/24 (again, if you’re living under a rock, April 23 is the day ol’ Mr. Shakes supposedly died) at The Globe in London. I’m not going to tell the whole story of the production, so if you want to know more about the whole project, click HERE.
The notably interesting cast, composed by twelve actors with extremely different backgrounds and experiences, is greatly adaptable, being able to cover the different required roles during the play, but also to take on a different character every performance (as the website says, two years is a long time to play just one part). Our Hamlet for the matinee was Ladi Emeruwa, a stunning young actor who took us by the hand and lead us through his character’s long rocky journey. Horatio was played by Phoebe Fildes, who brought an entire new level of compassion — and love — to Hamlet’s dear friend and confidante, while Rawiri Paratene, Claudius, stood imperious and unbent at Miranda Foster’s side, who was torn between the love for her son, and her duties as queen and wife. Tom Lawrence and Jennifer Leong shone as Laertes and Ophelia, and Keith Bartlett stole the scene as their father, balancing the right amounts of wit and comedy the role calls for. Speaking of scene-stealers, Beruce Khan stole the show teaming up with Matthew Romain for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and with the other multiple roles he took on during the course of the play (his Osric was absolutely fabulous and deserves to be mentioned).
In my experience, I’ve found two main approaching to telling Hamlet’s tragedy: one where the play is the thing, and one where the play is only one small thing among other things. In the latter, you have a stunning, stupendous, dazzling production with a massive set with details galore where you get easily lost among rich paintings and choreographed table toppers; then you can have a stripped down, simple, gracious, fine, neat, charming production, where it’s the words and the acting that bring the play to life. The bareness and earthliness of this set establishes this telling of Hamlet’s story as coming from the inside, rather than from the outside, it doesn’t allow the audience’s eyes to wonder lost, but it focuses the attention on the actors, who are capable of capturing you with their first word and never letting you go until they exhaled their last one. This production’s sets were surely designed and planned to be able to be handled and shipped and built all around the world in venues that present massive differences in dimensions and nature, nonetheless having such a stripped down atmosphere made a striking contrast in a theatre as luxurious and beautiful as the Politeama Rossetti in Trieste.
With Emeruwa coming from Nigeria, Leong from Hong Kong, Paratene being a New Zealand Māori, and Khan having Pakistani heritage, it’s the most varied Hamlet I’ve ever seen in my life. It was such a refreshing experience seeing so much diversity in such an important production for the history of theatre. Hopefully, there will soon come a day when we don’t have to mention this kind of diversity as surprising and uncommon, but for now, given the horrible times the entertainment business is going through, I feel the need to stress and underline what a marvel it is to see this kind of diversity in such a traditional play. Good job, Globe, I applaud you.
Thank you for your heartfelt words.
