The theatrical ensemble, Hamlet Globe to Globe, which has been on a global tour for a year, will make a Lagos stop on March 4 and 5 in two performances at 2pm and 6:30pm at the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos, and St. Saviours School, Ikoyi.
A statement from R&B PR said the tour opened at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, on April 23, 2014, which is the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.
“This unprecedented theatrical adventure is scheduled to tour every single country on earth over two years,” explained the statement.
Directed by The Globe’s Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole, this United Kingdom theatre production is presenting Nigerian actor, Ladi Emeruwa, in the shared role of Hamlet, together with an international cast and crew of 17.
Following rave performances at The Globe, in Wittenberg, in Tromso within the Arctic Circle, in Moscow, through the Baltics, in Kiev, at the United Nations in New York, at the oldest theatre in Central America, the majestic Teatro Nacional de El Salvador, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in Canada, in the shadow of Mexico’s Yucatan Cathedral, at a beautiful marina in Antigua and Barbuda, on a mountainside in Guatemala, in St. Kitts and Nevis, in Poland, outdoors in Chilean parks, in Argentina, and across majestic national theatres throughout South America, Hamlet arrived in Africa in January 2015.
The first African performance was at Algeria’s National Theatre. Hamlet Globe to Globe has since performed at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral in Carthage, Tunisia, at Ethiopia’s National Theatre in Addis Ababa, as a free outdoor performance in Sudan – making its way through East Africa, from Somliland to Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya and Uganda.
The tour has attracted rave reviews internationally, including from The New York Times, which describes it as “a production that prizes efficiency, clarity, accessibility and above all energy”.
The British Council, one of the sponsors of the project which tickets started selling in Lagos two weeks ago, said the project will travel to all 205 nations in the world to stage Hamlet in a huge range of unique and atmospheric venues, from village squares to national theatres, from palaces to beaches.
“They will travel by boat, sleeper train, jeep, tall ship, bus and aeroplane across the seven continents,” the British Council said.
The company of 12 actors and four stage managers has so far used a completely portable set to stage a Hamlet that celebrates all the exuberance and invention of Shakespeare’s language in a brisk two hours and 40 minutes.
