After the final audience members had taken their seats – to the sound of a folk jig, played by the cast strolling the aisles – it was announced that the UAE marked the 133rd country to host this production of Hamlet.
I spotted a few audience members balk in disbelief – but this was not dramatic licence. To mark Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, London’s Globe Theatre set off on an unprecedented mission to take the Bard’s most popular drama to every country in the world. That was 18 months ago. And still more than three-score countries to go.
Yet there was no sign of road-weariness onstage at Ductac on Saturday night (October 10). The young cast were sublime, Ladi Emeruwa gripping yet charming in the lead. The production was fresh, funny, and zippy – whizzing by in less than three hours, interval included.
There was a great playfulness to Dominic Dromgoole’s direction. Inventively adapting the 400-year-old text, lines were sung, spoken, moaned, all-but rapped in a liberal but respectful reinterpretation. Humour was created where there should be none, and much of the traditional torment was downplayed. The iconic “To be or not to be” and “Alas, poor Yorick...” lines were dispensed sharply and without fanfare.
The staging was affectingly sparse, bare necessities which offered just enough to allow both verse and cast to shine; gear trunks made building blocks, a few planks created surfaces. A single red sheet, hung the length of the small performance area, was used to create chambers of depth and deception.
Impressively, most of the cast proved dextrous musicians, plucking fiddles and droning cymbals in the background to heighten the tension or elation.
Every effort was made to keep things inclusive. The house lights were kept on all night, to replicate the spirit of the London original outdoor Globe, built in 1599. And the whole thing ended up with a barnstorming, high-kicking line dance. Who said Shakespeare is hard work?
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