A touring company from the Globe Theatre in London goes on the ultimate tour: 2 years travelling round the world in an attempt to put on a performance of Hamlet in every country.

I was expecting more of a travelogue but it turned out to be a series of reflections on the play with traveller's tales and reflections on people and places mixed in. And once I'd mentally shifted gears, it worked very well.

Dominic Dromgoole was director of The Globe Theatre up until his retirement in 2016, which marked the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. In 2014, The Globe marked the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of The Bard’s birth by staging all thirty-seven of his plays in in different languages, featuring theatre companies from around the world. This proved to be a runaway success, securing full houses and almost unanimous critical acclaim. To top this, Dromgoole and colleagues decided to mark the run up to the celebrations in 2016 by taking ‘Hamlet’ to every country in the world in the course of two years.

Right from the start, this plan encountered problems. Visas proved difficult (and expensive), and at any one time each member of the company would have one passport with them with the ‘Mission Control’ team back at the Globe held second (or even third) versions with which to chase up outstanding visas and other documentation for future destinations. There were, of course, considerable difficulties with regard to some countries. The inclusion in their itinerary of North Korea drew considerable negative media attention, though other destinations (Syria for example) would also prove problematical

Domgoole did not spend the whole two years travelling with the ‘Hamlet’ company himself. After all, he still had a full programme of performances at The Globe itself to oversee. He did fly out frequently to catch up with them, and to help with the promotion of the programme, and was, consequently, present at many inspired and inspiring performances, and witnessed bizarre stagings and receptions.

At the most basic level, this book recounts their experiences. It does, however, offer the reader so much more as well. Dromgoole dissects the play and offers intriguing analyses of the character of Hamlet himself, while also flagging up Shakespeare’s mastery, not just with language but with the mystique of stagecraft. There have been many critical analyses of ‘Hamlet” – exegesis of what is possibly Shakespeare’s most challenging play has become an industry of its own. Dromgoole, however, steals a march on many of them because of his own theatrical background, and in particular, his long association with The Globe. Who has a better insight into the theatricality of the play?

He does not stop there, however. As the company makes its way around the world, Dromgoole presents a brief history of women taking on the role of ‘Hamlet’, which provides fascinating background to his account of the company’s performance in Saudi Arabia which was billed as the first occasion in which men and women would act together in a production in that country. Similarly, his description of the performance in Pnomh Penh is accompanied by a potted history of the damage wrought across the country by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime. Indeed, each chapter proves similarly informative, with intriguing insights bringing the progress of the worldwide tour to life.

A very enjoyable and informative book, that provides interesting new persepctives on ‘Hamlet’ as a play. ( )

I’m going to end the year with a recommendation for your reading lists in 2017. Although it won’t be published until April, this book offers an optimistic note of hope to banish the darkness of what has, by any stretch of the imagination, been a bleak year. The context is this. Back in 2012, Shakespeare was at the heart of the cultural festival that accompanied the London Olympics. The main feature was the ambitious Globe to Globe festival, during which every one of Shakespeare’s plays was performed, each by a company from a different country, each in a different language. Buzzing from the success of that project, the team were looking for their next big adventure. And it was Dominic Dromgoole, then director of the Globe, who came up with a crazy idea during a genial away day. Why not tour Hamlet to every country in the world? ...

For the rest of the review, please visit my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2016/12/31/hamlet-globe-to-globe-dominic-dromgoole/ ( )