Hamlet: Globe to Globe
193,000 Miles, 197 Countries, One Play
-
- USD 8.99
-
- USD 8.99
Descripción editorial
NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017
In the middle of the sprawling Zaatari refugee camp, Dominic Dromgoole watches from the makeshift wings as Hamlet delivers one of his celebrated soliloquies. Four years earlier, Dromgoole, the Artistic Director of the Globe, had come up with a wildly ambitious idea . . . to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death by taking his most famous play to every country on the planet.
Over two full years, Dromgoole and the Globe players toured all seven continents performing Hamlet in sweltering deserts, grand Baltic palaces and heaving marketplaces - despite food poisoning in Mexico, the threat of ambush in Somaliland, an Ebola epidemic in West Africa and political upheaval in Ukraine.
Hamlet: Globe to Globe tells the fascinating story of this unprecedented theatrical adventure in which Dromgoole shows us the world through the prism of Shakespeare's universal drama. We see what the Danish prince means to the students of Cambodia, the effect of Polonius on the citizens of the tiny African nation of Djibouti and how a sixteenth-century play can touch the lives of Syrian refugees. Shakespeare's timeless power to transcend borders, to touch the human heart, and to bring the world closer together, has rarely been demonstrated in such a bold and brilliant way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With candor, humor, and erudition, English theater director Dromgoole (Will and Me) tells the incredible story of how, from 2014 to 2016, London's Globe Theatre company performed Hamlet all over the world, in nearly 200 countries. The basic point of both the book and tour is that Shakespeare's masterwork is universal and timeless. Readers get an informal history of the play's origins, the state of the theater in Shakespeare's time, and the ways the play has been produced between then and now. Dromgoole, executive director of the Globe from 2005 to 2016, draws on his vast knowledge of Shakespeare to explain in great detail what the play communicates and how the audience in each country relates to that. He is humble about the larger ramifications of the Globe Theatre's remarkable feat, but justifiably proud of what his actors and stage crew accomplished. Dromgoole is wise and witty; thoughtful, self-assured, even cocky; and, at times, verbose and esoteric. But he is never dull. His mission was to bring Hamlet to the world to show that Hamlet is the world, and he succeeded admirably. A wide readership, not just Shakespeare buffs and scholars, can enjoy this book.
