Shakesphere 2024

The Shakespeare 2024 Call Project has concluded with remarkable success, showcasing the Laribalta Teatro and English Theatre Company. This collaborative effort has culminated in the successful tour of their performance, Hamlet Double Bill, which was presented at six European Shakespeare festivals.

York International Shakespare Festival in UK

Neuss Shakespare Festival in Germany

Craiova Shakespare Festival in Romania

Gdańsk Shakepeare Festival in Poland

-who were this edition partners of Shakesphere Call.

Adittionaly “Hamlet Double Bill” had opportunity to travel to first the Ukrainian Shakespeare Festival at Ivano-Frankivsk as well as Itaka Shakespeare Festival in Serbia.

This production was carefully selected from a wide range of international proposals, highlighting the global appeal and relevance of Shakespeare’s work in contemporary theatre.

The European Shakespeare Festivals Network  has played a crucial role in bringing this production to audiences across Europe and foster collaboration among festivals and create new opportunities for theatre and performance makers inspired by Shakespeare’s work.

Here is how artists from La Ribalta Teatro & English Theatre Company- Adrian Hughes, Alberto Ierardi and Giorgio Vierda- reflect on their tour :

Everything began when we chanced upon/came across the “ShakeSphere” application almost a year ago, during October 2023.

In that period we (La Ribalta Teatro and The English Theatre Companys, two companies based in Pisa) were thinking about an idea for a show in which we could riff on Hamlet. We knew just a few things, such as that we wanted to give voice to two groups of characters in the play who usually don’t have one: the Players and the Gravediggers. Then we came up with the idea that we could split the show into two parts: the first one, where the Actors would have been the main characters, bright, funny, and brilliant; and the second one, where the Gravediggers would lead the darker, bleaker, and deeper scenes. Actually, we thought, the play of Hamlet has these two different atmospheres inside and beyond its lines.

And that’s how the first concept of our Hamlet: Double Bill was born.

After that, we only had to win the contest, which we did. We managed to structure the whole show for three actors and fit it in two suitcases… the show, not the actors.

Winning the competition was the first step that made us create something, that made us deal with the moment you move from the idea to the reality, and then, rehearsal by rehearsal, the show took its staged shape, ready to tour.

First show: York International Shakespeare Festival. Great debut. And then Neuss Shakespeare Festival, where we played inside a Globe Theatre. After that Craiova Shakespeare Festival, the first time we played two days in a row, and then the Ukrainian Shakespeare Festival at Ivano-Frankivsk (the first Shakespeare Festival in Ukraine). Then was the time of the beautiful portrait of the open-air stage at Vila Stankovic at Cortanovci, Novi Sad, Serbia in the Itaka Shakespeare Festival, and finally the two dates at the Gdansk Shakespeare Festival, where we had the honour to finish our tour.

To us, Hamlet: Double Bill did not mean just a show, but above all a journey. It was the people we met, the public who got excited and played with us, the technicians who supported us, the organizers, the fantastic welcome we received, the care given to us, the accommodation we stayed in, the trains, the buses, the planes, the drivers, the mosquitoes on stage, the rain before the show, the silent disco, the pubs, the breakfasts, and the beers drunk (especially those offered). But Hamlet: Double Bill was also the strength of a people who, despite the bombs, stepped on stage because the Theatre represents a place of life that contrasts with the death caused by the war: Theatre as a space of Resistance.

Hamlet: Double Bill was a continuous meeting of new and different things and people, united by the desire to experience theatre as a stimulus.

Thanks to this tour, we re-learned (and re-learning Is one of the most precious gift that we could receive from life) that what divides us is nothing compared to what unites us. That is our biggest take-away from this tour. Yes, it has been easy to see what makes each ‘Nationality’ distinct, but we are also reminded how borders are too often arbitrarily drawn up to corral ethnicities, religious followers, or the oppressed. But, when encountering these ‘different’ peoples, it is clear that we laugh and we cry together, at the same moments on stage, and in life. We do not always understand the words of each other’s languages, but we feel the meaning of what the sounds of those words carry.