The Al Hamlet Summit
About.
The Al Hamlet Summit, 2001-05
Written & Directed by Sulayman Al Bassam
Dramaturgy & Editor- Georgina Van Welie
Running time, 95 minutes
Performed in English and Arabic
Premiere:
English Language Version:
The Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh UK (2002).
Arabic Language Version:
Tokyo International Arts Festival, Japan (2004).
A startling piece of new writing that borrows from Shakespeare’s plot to create a poetic and powerful critique of contemporary political scenarios, set in the cauldron of Middle East discontent. The familiar characters of Shakespeare’s play are delegates in a conference room in an unnamed modern Arab state on the brink of war. Having gained control of a modern Arab state, a ruthless dictator attempts a westernised experiment, in thrall to arms dealers and propped up by US dollars. Yet a catastrophic war is brewing, he is besieged by enemy neighbours from without, and a growing politicised Islam from within, and his predecessor’s son Hamlet is plotting revenge…
With the introduction of an Arms Dealer, desperately courted by each of the delegates, Shakespeare’s universe firmly enters the present day. Visually, we are solidly located in a 21st century political universe, with the live-feeds and projection screen constantly reminding us of last night’s television address by George W. Bush, or last week’s summit in Bonn or Washington. This arrangement allows Shakespeare’s words to take on an uncanny metaphorical resonance.
Director’s note.
Hamlet as an expression of politics…has been the driving force behind this work as it moved through its various stages of development that began in January 2001. The text is a cross-cultural piece of writing in which I have tried to capture a sense of geographical context and contemporary resonance. When first performed in English in 2002 by my London-based theatre company, Zaoum Theatre, it aimed to allow English-speaking audiences a richer understanding of the Arab world and its people, and how their fates are inextricably linked to that of the West’s.
Three years on and one war later, the Arabic language version that brings together actors from across the Arab world, seeks to probe a step further into the troubled heart of the modern day Middle East. I have endeavoured to avoid the polemic; favouring a concrete and poetic formulation of an Arab viewpoint.
The style of writing combines aspects of the Arab oral poetry tradition with the rhetoric of modern-day politics. In directing the piece, I sought to bring out a precise and grotesque hyperrealism in the work.
The conference chamber that gradually slides into a war room directly illuminates the political setting of the piece. It is a huis-clos that parodies the so-called ‘transparency’ of today’s political processes and it is a deadly arena of internal conflict. It is not a piece about any specific country in the Arab world. Rather, it presents a composite of many Arab concerns that affect peoples from the Arabian Gulf to the Atlantic and beyond.
Sulayman Al-Bassam, 2004
Reviews.
“One of the most intriguing and intelligent pieces I have seen”
— The Financial Times, UK, 16 August 2002 (Ian Shuttleworth)
“Astonishing, electrifying…I doubt whether this year’s Festival will produce another show so directly relevant to the nightmare that is brewing in the Middle East, or so vivid and eloquent in the theatrical means it uses to confront it.”
— The Scotsman, UK, 8 August 2002 (Joyce MacMillan)
“The most daring piece of political theatre”
— The Times, UK, 12 August 2002 (David Stenhouse)
“This work is about as original and pulse-quickening as you could wish.”
— The Times, UK, 12 March 2004 (Donald Hutera)
“Al-Hamlet is a superbly constructed dramatisation of a society’s descent into fundamentalism and chaos… urgent, vital; sublime.”
— The Sunday Herald, Scotland, August 2002 (Tim Abrahams)
“Al-Bassam’s reworking of Shakespeare’s play is a brilliantly simple theatrical conjuring trick that has Elsinore fitting the current explosive state of Middle East politics like a silk glove.”
— The Guardian, UK, 13 March 2004 (Lyn Gardner)
“Staged with hypnotic force”
— The Independent, UK, 11 March 2004 (Paul Taylor)
“a disarming mix of Arab oral poetry and modern political rhetoric”
— The Financial Times, UK, 10 March 2004 (Alistair Macaulay)