In its 400 plus year history, “Hamlet” has been performed as a play, as a film, and even quoted by the Klingons; but next year “Hamlet” is being performed in a manner William Shakespeare could never have imagined…with rock music!
Thom Yorke from the British rock band Radiohead is joining up with Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones for a production of “Hamlet” featuring music from the Radiohead album “Hail to the Thief”. The production will feature 20 actors and musicians including Yorke.
The world premiere of “Hamlet Hail to the Thief” will be at the Aviva Studios in Manchester, UK beginning April 27 and run through May 18 with the official opening night on May 7.
The production will then move to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford Upon Avon from June 4-28 with the official opening night on June 12.
Yorke is “deconstructing” “Hail to the Thief” for the occasion.
Yorke spoke on the project saying, “this is an interesting challenge! Adapting the original music of ‘Hail to the Thief’ for live performance with the actors on stage to tell this story that is forever being told, using its familiarity and sounds, pulling them into and out of context, seeing what chimes with the underlying grief and paranoia of ‘Hamlet’, using the music as a ‘presence’ in the rom, watching how it collides with the action and the text. Ghosting one against the other.”
Christine Jones added, “the first Radiohead concert I ever saw was the ‘Hail to the Thief’ tour in 2003. It changed my DNA. Not long after, I was reading ‘Hamlet’ and listening to the album. Paying attention to the lyrics, I became aware of how many songs from ‘Hail to the Thief’ speak to the themes of the play. There are uncanny revererances between the text and the album. For years I’ve wanted to see the play and album collide in a piece of theatre… We’ve found that the play haunts the album, and the album haaunts the play. Both reflect the internal disuiet and rage that result from despair – in particular despair arising fro scrutiny of dominant power structures – whether within governments, communities, or families. The text and music probe us relentlessly to question what we are made of, and how to discern right from wrong”.
Steven Hoggett concluded, “to communicate this expansive narrative, we have found it illuminating and inspiring to loook to movement, text, lighting, sound, and music to achieve the complexities of the storytelling. We hope that bringing such elements into play means that anyone seeing their first-ever Shakespeare will find a variety of ‘ways in’ to enjoy and appreciate what a spectacular play this is.”
Tickets go on sale beginning at 10am BST on October 2 at FactoryInternational.org and RSC.org,uk