Hamlet

Hamlet by William Shakespeare. (1599?) As elsewhere in the world, this is one of the more popular of the tragedies and often performed in South Africa. The first time according to Fletcher (1994, quoting Keeling and Bonner) was when Captain W. Keeling had it performed on board his ship the Dragon off the coast of Southern Africa in 1608, on his way to the Cape. The first recorded performance of a substantial excerpt from Hamlet (act 3) on land was only in 1854 in Cape Town (Bosman 1928). However the first recorded (semi-) professional performance of the full play came with the arrival of Sefton Parry and his 1858 season of Shakespeare plays, followed by Disney Roebuck's production of 1876. Done by the Ben Wheeler Theatre Company in Cape Town in 1896 (with Leonard Rayne), **. Other notable productions were at Maynardville (Leslie French directing, 19**), at the Johannesburg Civic in 1964 (by PACT, directed by Margaret Inglis with François Swart , Reinet Maasdorp, Joe Stewardson and Joan Blake). NAPAC (1964), **and CAPAB (197*, with Ralph Lawson) (CAPAB, 198*?), PACT (198*, directed by Francois Swart, with Marius Weyers and **), Baxter Theatre (197*/8*? With Brumilda van Rensburg?*) *** (19**, with **, ** and Peter Butler); Loft Theatre Company in Durban (19**), Baxter Theatre and National Arts Festival, (1992, directed by Chris Weare with Ralph Lawson and 2005, directed by Janet Suzman with John Kani, Dorothy-Ann Gould and Rajesh Gopie), **. Perhaps one of the most important Hamlet productions, however was the Afrikaans production in 1947, translated by L.I. Coertze, produced by André Huguenet in conjunction with African Consolidated Theatres, directed by Anna Neethling-Pohl and Siegfried Mynhardt, and featuring André Huguenet and Berdine Grünewald as Hamlet and Ophelia, alongside a stellar cast of Afrikaans performers, including Anna Neethling-Pohl as Gertrude, Gideon Roos, Olivier Burgers, Jan Schutte. It opened to enormous ovation in the Opera House, Pretoria on *** 1947, and the clamour surrounding its success led directly to the founding of the National Theatre Organisation. (The same Afrikaans version was used to open the Wynand Mouton Theatre in Bloemfontein on Thursday October 13 1983.) Notable other performances of this text were those of *** in 19**, Cobus Rossouw and Pieter Joubert for CAPAB and PACOFS in 19**? *** in 19**, Marius Weyers for PACT in 198*?, etc?? Hamlet has also been translated into a number of other South African languages, including Southern Sotho as Hamlet, kgosi ea Denmark by I. Mahloane. (Published by Mazenod in 1964), . There have also been the various adaptations and **s such as **, Dogg's Hamlet- Cahoot's Macbeth (PACOFS, 198*), **

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