Shakespeare’s Globe is putting up a production of Globe to Globe Hamlet at the Salesian Theatre, Sliema, on February 8 at 2pm and 7.30pm. Performances are also being planned at the migrants’ open centres.
Globe to Globe Hamlet opened at Shakespeare’s Globe on April 23, 2014, the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth and is set to conclude on April 23 – the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
This unprecedented theatrical adventure sees the company perform to audiences from every single country in the world across two years. A 16-strong cast is currently travelling across the seven continents performing in a huge range of unique and atmospheric venues.
As the company is unable to visit Libya due to safety reasons, the Globe is working closely with the Agency For The Welfare Of Asylum Seekers in Malta to invite migrants in the area to see the performance for free.
Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe and director of Hamlet said: “Globe to Globe Hamlet was created with the aim of performing Hamlet to as many people as possible in as diverse a range of places as possible. The central principle of the tour is that Shakespeare can entertain and speak to anyone, no matter where they are on earth; and that no country or people are not better off for the lively presence of Hamlet.”
Globe to Globe Hamlet has been performed in over 150 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East to more than 100,000 people, with over three fourths of the whole tour now complete.
In October, the troupe performed at the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan. The show took place at the International Research and Development site in District 2 of the camp, with an audience of around 200 refugees. After the performance in Malta, the group will travel to Belgium.
Last January saw Hamlet travel to East Africa, with the first African performance of the tour at Algeria’s National Theatre.
Other January highlights included the incredible Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, the beautiful St Louis Cathedral in Carthage, Tunisia and Ethiopia’s National Theatre in Addis Ababa. A free outdoor performance in Sudan drew an audience of over 3,000 people. That same month, the Hamlet company became the first foreign theatre company to perform a full play in Somaliland for 23 years.
February saw the production continue its journey around East Africa with performances in the gardens of the University of Rwanda and in Burundi, Kenya and Uganda.
Last year, Hamlet was performed to audiences at The Globe in Wittenberg, Tromsø within the Arctic Circle, Moscow, through the Baltics, Kiev on the eve of their elections to an audience that included Vladimir Klitschko and Pietro Poroshenko, at the UN in New York, at the oldest theatre in Central America, the majestic Teatro Nacional de El Salvador, in Argentina, which marked the 100th show and across majestic national theatres throughout South America.
In October 2014, Unesco patronage was granted to Globe to Globe Hamlet in recognition of the tour’s engagement with local communities and promotion of cultural education.