Kupenga Kwa HAMLET – preparing for the tour

2 August 2010

On a bright Thursday morning I went to the Oval House Theatre in London to talk to the Zimbabwean company, Two Gents Productions, about their version of Hamlet, which is touring our rural venues and playing at The Watermill in November. I’m here to watch a practice run so that I can start work on our educational support for schools. There is that slight tension in the air that always comes before an important final rehearsal. They have recently returned from Zimbabwe where Kupenga Kwa Hamlet met with success, but they’ve been making big changes since then and it’s their last rehearsal day before flying to Poland to perform in the Gdansk Festival tomorrow. ‘I suppose we’ll have a few hours to rehearse in Poland before we perform,’ Arne, the director, muses. ‘Perhaps you can talk on the plane?’ I suggest optimistically. He beams.
The distinctive ‘township’ style of Two Gents relies entirely on the charm of its two performers to work. But charisma is something that Denton and Tonderai have in spades. The two of them play all the roles with total confidence, switching from Hamlet to Ophelia as casually as if they are sipping cocktails by the pool. The audience is the third actor in this production: fellow conspirators with Hamlet one moment, and meek subjects of the King the next. As Arne and I are the only audience members for this runthrough, I begin to feel as though I have quite a large role to play. It’s a hot, airless rehearsal room but the sounds of traffic on the road below fade away as Denton’s Hamlet suddenly turns to me and says thoughtfully: ‘To be, or not to be, that is the point.’ It’s impossible not to be simultaneously moved by the beautiful muscularity of the poetry and swept up in the action as we hurtle through a four hour play in 80 minutes.
Later, we go for sandwiches in a nearby Portuguese cafe (clearly half of London has fallen for this company: even here, the three of them are treated like celebrities). We talk about the choices they have made in the production and how it will go against expectations. The text is taken from the First Quarto: a kind of rough and ready draft of Shakespeare’s plays, taken in note form during the first performances, before a full script could be put together. It’s not normally used, but that ‘rough and readiness’ suits their style perfectly: the unexpected quirky humour and a good-natured irreverence towards this famous play means they have made it their own. I can’t wait to see what our audience will think of it. I guarantee you’ll never look at Ophelia in quite the same way again…

Beth Flintoff
Learning & Participation Director