William Shakespeare's Own Brings Hamlet to Bengaluru

Bengaluru: Set up as a tribute to the original theatre where William Shakespeare himself worked, The Globe Theatre group performed the play, Hamlet, in Bengaluru on Tuesday. This was a part of their mammoth tour that started in 2014 to visit every country in the world, 450 years after the famous bard was born.

Bengalureans were lucky as theirs was the only Indian city where the group performed. The production was stripped down to the basics. There were sets made of packing cases, modern costumes, with each player playing many parts.

Ladi Emurewa, one of the actors who plays the role of Hamlet, told NDTV, "Essentially there are two of us who play Hamlet, most of the time and then as of this year , whenever we do more than 2 shows in a country we play Hamlet with a third player."

There were three performances at the south Bengaluru theatre, Rangashankara. The theatre's artistic director, S Surendranath told NDTV, "It's massive... I think they carry around 480 kilos of luggage with them, and everything except the stage and lights, they carry everything."

But tradition was closely observed when it came to the magical, immortal words themselves. After all this is Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, so they were unlikely to tamper with perfection.

Advertisement

Pheobe Fildes, who plays Opheila, Gertrude and Hoaratio in turns, said, "We have been to the Caribbean where I found the audience has been the most responsive. People would call out; people would be conversing with you."

Amanda Wilkin, who shares the same roles, said, "We performed in Sudan which was incredible. We must have had about five thousand trying to get in, when there were only seats for 3,000 to 3,500."

Advertisement

Another artistic director and actor from Bengaluru's Rangashankara Arundhati Nag said, "I said this team is like a piece of the moon for me as an actor... because where in the world will you meet an actor who is performing Shakespeare ... who is from the Globe... and traveling 200 countries in 2 years."