Hamlet: Globe to Globe: Taking Shakespeare to Every Country in the World - Hardcover

Dromgoole, Dominic

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1782116907 ISBN 13: 9781782116905

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2017

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

"Richly entertaining . . . His love of language is contagious . . . the storytelling segues into scholarship with extraordinary skill from the off as he ricochets the modern world with a 400-year-old text" (The Times)

"Taking in sandblown refugee camps, the hallucinatory effects of performing with chronic food poisoning in Mexico City and the politically-charged atmosphere of an auditorium in Ukraine on an election's eve, it is an entertaining, moving and informative read" (Evening Standard)

"Dromgoole's witty account offers insight about the play and its enduring appeal" (New York Times, 100 Notable Books of 2017)

"Full of life lessons . . . Erudite and fascinating . . . There's a real sense of the camaraderie and sheer fun of assembling a company and, quite literally, putting the show on wherever they can . . . The universal themes explored in the play take on a new and thrilling resonance, as the actors learn as much from their audiences as vice versa . . . Truly compelling" (Observer)

"A delightfully idiosyncratic account of the Globe's vagabond mission to perform Hamlet in every country in the world . . . the joy of the book is Dromgoole's gusto . . . the way he meanders from personal anecdote to wider textual or cultural significance makes his book feel like a shaggy-dog documentary that you just don't want to end ****" (Daily Telegraph)

"Compulsively readable" (New York Times)

"Delivers sharp insights into a play Dromgoole has spent a lifetime turning over in his mind" (Guardian)

"This deeply humane, consistently enthralling account of a theatrical odyssey encompasses travelogue and literary criticism, theatre history and introspective narrative, political commentary and philosophical reflection with beguiling readability" (Sir Stanley Wells)

"

Dominic Dromgoole's recounting of the Globe Theatre's exhausting global tour of Hamlet is exhilarating. The playing company's intrepid journey around the world - performing Hamlet's own troubled journey - succeeds in making the familiar unfamiliar and enables in turn a deeply illuminating journey into the play itself.

" (James Shapiro, author of 1599 and 1606)

"An epic journey which explores how a 400-year-old play can help to make sense of the modern world" (Sunday Post)

Book Description:

Hamlet Globe to Globe takes readers across all seven continents on a fascinating journey into the world of Shakespeare, Hamlet and the stage. From Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director of The Globe Theatre.

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1782116907
• ISBN 13: 9781782116905
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400