“Hamlet” Spring 2025 Tour: Entry #2

By Michael Wagg

The US is sport mad. And so are we. Here in Virginia, propelled by the lacrosse locker room antics of last week, we’ve joined up good and proper. Back home in south-east London my wife and I have a strange habit of substituting the word ‘stupid’ for anything similar. Don’t ask. Weston Stupid-Mare, for example. Or, of course, the Stupid Bowl. But I can report that this Bowl is anything but. The Super Bowl is in fact both super and bloody brilliant. 

The five of us Hamleters embraced the game from the off, warming up by cheering on Notre Dame in the College final, before settling in for the pro Championship finals (essentially the semi-finals) in our first week away. We each picked a team, but most of us came up short. Which made most of us Philadelphia Eagles fans for the big one, since the Eagles were underdog to the Chiefs, winners of the last two Bowls in a row. Back home in south-east London, we’re also often shouting Eagles (the moniker for Crystal Palace FC) with an absurdly elongated ee. So it all makes sense. Somehow.

In fact, we’re equally likely to be shouting about Hamlet. But I’ll come to that in a moment. Back to the Bowl. We ensconced ourselves in Revolution Golf & Grille for the main event. To the untrained eye this game can seem like four hours of aggressive advertising peppered with the odd bit of chucking a ball about; but it’s far more than that. It’s a bloody good – if funny old – game. 

As the ebb and flow of the action met the ebb and flow of beer and wings, the 59th Super Bowl became a glorious turn up for the books. Prompting a hasty rewrite of this blog! The Eagles dominated from the off. The Chiefs appeared strangely out of sorts and, despite a late attempt at a comeback, Philadelphia triumphed 40-22. The Eagles soared as quarterback Jalen Hurts did the damage. 

But back to Hamlet. Or rather to that bit of it that is forever south-east London. I promise I’ll talk about the work we’re doing at some point! But I can’t let this tour pass, nor contain my excitement in celebrating its resonance for me and those dear to me, without mentioning our beloved Hamlet. 

I don’t expect you to have heard of Dulwich Hamlet FC – also known as The Hamlet – but it’s a lower league football/soccer club that plays in pink ‘n’ blue and I spend an inordinate amount of time engaged with it. The club sits at the heart of its community; which I’m sure is true of the midnight green of the Philly Eagles, too.

Sarah and I got married on the Dulwich Hamlet pitch 14 years ago; we scored a goal as a surrogate kiss, enjoyed speeches in the main stand and a punk party in the clubhouse after. I’m proud to sit on the board of the Supporters’ Trust and write about the club regularly. I’ve never been in a production of Hamlet before; but have bellowed the word countless times beside muddy pitches here, there and everywhere. I’ve long dreamt of making a Hamlet for The Hamlet and it might just happen now!

The ‘Hamlet’ of the football club refers to a small village, but never mind that. Hamlet, the drama, is part of the club’s folklore. We sing songs on the terraces about ‘reading Shakespeare’ – once again with that elongated ee. We sell t-shirts in the club shop (a shipping container where I often put in a shift) with Yorick emblazoned across them.

Yorick is one of the most famous Shakespeare characters, despite appearing only as the skull of a man who died 23 years ago. The misquoted ‘Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well’ does him a huge disservice. The more accurate ‘I knew him, Horatio’ forces the actor to stress the verb. Hamlet knew him. As a youngster he sat on his knee and laughed at his brilliant nonsense. Yorick is the spirit of Hamlet

And Hamlet is the spirit, for me at least, of the art and the sport. Among the five of us there are of course other teams making our hearts flutter. Arsenal looms large and Liverpool too. But as the First Gravedigger I wear a bobble hat in the pink ‘n’ blue of Dulwich Hamlet. 

Right, as promised, what work have we done here in Williamsburg, Virginia? Not that much to be honest. It’s been a very light week, but a lovely one. Joanna and I led a workshop on interpretations of The Tempest; while Sadie and Jack tackled the difficult ending of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

Our show at the Glenn Close Theatre went down really well. A trip to College Creek Beach rewarded us with the special sight of two bald eagles (there to spur on Philly, no doubt) and we’ve enjoyed exploring the peculiar spaces of this history-dripped town. 

I’ve not the words left nor the insight to describe it, but it’s very historic. That much I know. I also know that Glenn Close was a student here at The College of William & Mary; as were four US presidents, including Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe (pictured, as a Hamlet fan). The college is the second-oldest higher education institution in the US, founded in 1693, exactly 200 years before The Hamlet. 

Adding to the Sport, there’s an intriguing graduation ‘triathlon’ tradition of jumping the walls of the Governor’s Palace, streaking through the Sunken Garden, and swimming in the Crim Dell. We waited in vain on the pretty bridge for a view of the action. The downtown of ‘colonial’ Williamsburg is like no other and has to be seen to be believed. It’s somewhere between Stratford-Upon-Avon and East Dulwich. Which is no bad thing. I grew up in Warwickshire and get my kicks at The Hamlet. Football’s the winner!

“Hamlet” Spring 2025 Tour: Entry #1

By Michael Wagg

True hope is swift

Here we go.  Ahead of us are ten US cities, across eight states, in three time zones. A play written 425 years ago which may be the most famed of them all; 26 characters, just five actors to inhabit them. A company with 50 years’ history, making and touring almost 80 full productions of Shakespeare plays, alongside classroom residencies for thousands of students since 1975. And now it’s our turn: we are Esmonde, Jack, Joanna, Sadie and Waggy, raising our bats for a half century. 

The weight of all this, the hope itself, could feel immense. Added to which are all those Hamlets behind us, all those Ophelias, Horatios, Osrics and Yoricks, hanging round our necks whispering ‘remember me.’ But with Shakespeare as some sort of engine, here at Hope College in the thaw, what I think we feel at the outset is the opposite: lightness, swiftness. A murmuration in blank verse. The readiness is all.

Someone stop me, before I lose myself in a vortex of theatrical-ornithological nostalgia. There’ll be plenty more of that along the way, by the way! And incidentally, starlings exist in the US thanks to their mention in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. But what are we actually doing here? 

Well, we’ve rehearsed our production of Hamlet for five weeks at the Karibu Centre in Brixton, London, followed by a week consolidating the work – while opening bank accounts, getting social security numbers and slurping French onion soup – on the campus of our home base at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. What Homer ‘Murph’ Swander and Captain Jean Luc Picard set in motion, among others, 50 years ago is stronger than ever and still true to its original aim: Shakespeare, front and centre. 

We are a five-strong company of actors who have made our show with no single director, designer, composer or stage management. The stuff of our production, like all of those before us, fits into one suitcase and it can be played anywhere, with no depending on set or costuming and with very little stage tech. Though we do have a few tricks up our collective sleeve. Our motto from the off has been ‘for the good of the play.’ 

We’ve already previewed to a focused audience at the Westville Correctional Facility in Indiana, and this week opened the show proper at the Knickerbocker Theater in downtown Holland, Michigan. Which is a lovely town by the way, full of breweries and tulips, somewhere under the ice.

As always, we’ve also spent the week working across campus with students of all disciplines at this handsome Liberal Arts College on the east shore of Lake Michigan. It’s been a relatively light week so we’ve been lowered gently into the plunge pool of learning. I led a workshop for Creative Writing majors coming to the business end of their course and then one for Acting students on Waiting For Godot. Sadie and Joanna led sessions with Psychologists exploring sleep and global child rights.

Meanwhile Esmonde ran a workshop on improvisation, while Jack was thrust into the locker room to work with the men’s lacrosse team on dealing with ‘trash talk.’ Shakespeare’s dynamic, juicy insults are never not needed, and if ever there was an example of how this work works – where something of Shakespeare meets, head on, something of the world – Jack’s raucous, brilliant session was it. As they say at the Sport, or at the original Globe for that matter: scenes! 

Our first shows, at the glorious Art Nouveau Knickerbocker and at the Muskegon Correctional Facility, were warmly received – the prison performance in particular, a forceful reminder of the concrete value of this work. Research shows that by committing to this four-year degree program, of which our performance was part, our audience are reducing their chances of reoffending by 75%. One student thanked us afterwards ‘for taking me out of here for two hours.’

The shows have bolstered us to continue to refine and reinvent our telling of this soul-searching story. Particularly after Sadie overheard a potential audience member outside the theatre asking ‘What the f*#k is Hamlet?!’  It’s a good question and we hope the answer lies on the road ahead; but since brevity is the soul of wit – something I ought to know by now and have spectacularly failed to achieve in this first missive – I’ll share more about the show in the coming weeks and dive into some of the history of this singular company, AFTLS & Shakespeare at Notre Dame.

To call it a company is right, but it’s far more than that: it’s a life-long project, certainly a way of life for us five hopefuls for the next ten weeks; it’s a labour of many, many loves, and a creative commitment to share Shakespeare’s words, not on the page, but in the air between us. 

“Twelfth Night” Fall 2024 Tour: Entry #6

By Shona Babayemi

This week, we land in Florence, Alabama, adjacent to the musical town of Muscle Shoals, home to some of the most iconic recording studios of all time. We had the pleasure of working with an incredible team at UNA including Latasha, Leo, Duell, Stephen, Brenna, Sydney, and Jason, to name but a few of the lovely people we connected with.

If I could give the team a theme tune it would be I’ll Take You There by The Staples Singers, recorded at Bama’s very own Muscles Shoals Sounds! It radiates hope and positivity. It encapsulates the resilience and togetherness we felt this week in Florence. 

With the election looming, it was hard to feel enthusiastic about being in a historically red state. Leaving the hotel that morning came with an overwhelming sense of dread, as the presidential candidate – whose views oppose my very existence, along with that of so many others on the team – had just been elected. It’s difficult. It’s difficult to look people in the eye, and equally, you become consumed with wondering whether that random stranger in a random ice cream parlour sees any of your humanity, as you contemplate the Butter Pecan or the Orange Pineapple – both delicious. 

So, to arrive at the English Department with a team that wears their hearts on their sleeves was profoundly comforting. Feeling safe enough to be upset, cry, and acknowledge how difficult it all is felt like a release. There are, of course, members of the team who aren’t able to do the same – who bury their fury under smiles, lean on learned pleasantries, and put their best faces on in the name of professionalism. I see you. I can’t think of a better team to be around during election week. They were caring, comforting, and present – a lot of support in a challenging time.

Riding through towns that are dotted with cotton fields, and flanked by flags in favour of the reelected candidate was a sobering experience on our way to Limestone Correctional Facility. The five of us planned a workshop for a group of astute students studying alongside some brilliant UNA students. We did a crash course on the chaos, joy, and tenacity of Twelfth Night. The students were a joy to work with, bringing enthusiasm and curiosity to the material. The week has flown by, and despite the political weight of the week, we got to stay in the hotel that once housed the Rolling Stones. I think our little slice of Florence has been good to us and that southern hospitality is real.

There’s nothing more magical than flying on an overcast day. Breaking through the clouds to float on a sea of cushiony fluff, highlighted by the sun, it is breathtaking. Without sounding too shallow or flippant,  it feels like a hopeful metaphor for breaking through the cloudiness of our respective political climates. Nevertheless, it’s a sight to behold.

On to the next one…

“Twelfth Night” Fall 2024 Tour: Entry #5

By Shona Babayemi

Chattanooga is like Nashville’s laid-back and cooler cousin, nestled along the Tennessee River and surrounded by mountains. Chattanooga exudes an understated charm that is really quite brilliant! After a couple of weeks in cities dominated by cars, we were much relieved to be able to walk around and feel our feet on the ground! With Lookout Mountain standing strong in our backdrop and a fresh autumnal breeze in the air, being excited to explore Chattanooga is an understatement. Who better to be our tour guide than Bob Boyer?

UTC’s Fine Arts Center is a stunning trio of performance spaces and galleries nestled amongst a sea of auburn trees. I would say it is the University of Tennessee’s beating heart. Mr. Boyer is the Director of Performances at the centre, and oversees a great number of artists and performers. I had the pleasure of hitting up Uncle Larry’s for some catfish and super sweet sweet tea and I got to know Bob a little better. We spoke about the upcoming election, gentrification, mental health, immigration, photography, race, gender, family, accessibility, legacy and the greatness of the humble hushpuppy. (Deep fried cornbread bites for those yet to discover.) I am sure we would have brought the world to rights if we had the time but, a wonderful class awaits. Wonderful students and professors who filled our performances with friendly faces and laughs aplenty.

With a pit stop at Channel 9 News to promote the show and the fabulous work AFTLS do, myself and Sarah put our very best TV faces on to interview for The Daily Refresh.

“CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Today on the show, Josh talked to Sarah Finigan and Shona Babayemi, who are Actors From The London Stage, about how AFTLS was founded in 1975 and how they bring Shakespeare’s plays to life and what can we expect when we see the show on stage this weekend.”

A week that flew by all too quickly but awaits our home away from home, Notre Dame! Off to South Bend we go. Can’t wait.

“Twelfth Night” Fall 2024 Tour: Entry #4

By Shona Babayemi

Gator fans decked out in fiery oranges and dazzling blues would give Malvolio and his yellow stockings a run for his money this week. As the roads, and more importantly, the parking lots, flood with tailgaters this Gainesville homecoming. Homecoming is a tradition, especially in the US, that typically takes place in the autumn. It welcomes former students, alumni, or community members to their school or hometown and Gainesville was buzzing with people and their cars! For us Brits the equivalent would be a knees up in a pub with squelching sticky carpet followed by grumpy walkouts if there was even a sniff of losing the game.

AFTLS had our own homecoming of sorts this week with alumni Waggy, Michael Wagg – last starring in AFTLS’ Macbeth (spring 2024) and joining his Mrs., our very own and very brilliant Sarah Finigan. Waggy brought a grounding comfort and keen eye to our rehearsal room back in Brixton, London and it was nice to be reminded of that here in Florida. We dragged ourselves to the Swamp Head Brewery to delight in Banana Bread IPAs and Key Lime Pie Cider for a well-needed catch-up. Thanks for sharing him with us, Sarah!

I went to Santa Fe College, where I met some outstanding theatre majors. We ripped some Shakespeare to shreds and then respectfully put it back together. I thank the students. Florida is bursting at the seams with wildlife. If it’s not a bear or deer, it’s a gator; if it’s not a gator, it’s an exotic bird or a butterfly. You really do feel like you’re encroaching on their space. Speaking of which, we also had an unexpected friend of the lizard variety take the best seats in the house (see below). On that note, and as I bat away an insect that is currently trying to take over this blog. Goodbye Gainesville! x