TNT BRITAIN One of the world’s foremost touring companies presents William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Performed in English with Chinese subtitle

Touring Dates: 10 March - 20 April 2008

Presented by: Milky Way Arts & Communications Co.Ltd

Hamlet

Hamlet is perhaps the most fascinating play ever written. It is also a complex and sometimes frustrating mix of different traditions, beliefs and source material. Prince Hamlet’s own problems are those of the audience:

Hamlet is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind. Our new production will challenge this traditional idea and try to demonstrate that the confusions in the play Hamlet are the confusions in the Prince’s mind. Shakespeare is a dramatic poet not a realist nor a Romantic. He is concerned with powerful dramatic effect. We do not see the Prince as being a man flawed by indecision, but a man paralysed by a moral problem. It is surely not a tragic weakness that Hamlet refuses to kill Claudius at his prayers if we go along with Shakespeare and accept that Claudius would be forgiven if he goes to the final Judgement saying his prayers. But the act of prayer reminds Hamlet (and the audience) that murder is wrong, even in revenge. Hamlet’s madness is both an act and a way of confronting the “rotten” state of Denmark with the truth. Hamlet is clear in his pursuit of truth, the play is a wonderful detective story, and he hopes that the truth will lead him to an answer to his moral question. His tragedy is not so much his own failure to act, but the essential human tragedy of Death itself. Death is the ultimate truth and as Hamlet goes deeper he constantly ends up confronting the death of those he loved or himself. Perhaps Hamlet succeeds so well in the theatre (whilst being rather confused upon the page) because its central metaphor is the paradox of performance: it is the Player’s performance that unmasks Claudius, it is Hamlet’s feigned madness that allows him to speak the truth and it is the whole play itself that holds a mirror up to our troubled human consciousness as it tries to make sense of morality and death.

After the success of MACBETH, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM and The Taming of the Shrew, director Paul Stebbings, will continue the company’s exploration of Shakespeare’s major works in the spirit and style that reflects Shakespeare’s own time and theatrical resources.

TNT Theatre
www.adg-europe.com

TNT theatre was founded in 1980 in Britain and since has established itself as one of the most popular international touring theatre companies in the world. Last season alone the company produced seven productions in almost thirty countries worldwide, ranging from Shakespeare classics such as ROMEO & JULIET to their own new play HITLER KILLED MY CANARY, from works by contemporary artists such as Paul Auster’s MOON PALACE to the classic seasonal show: Dickens’ CHRISTMAS CAROL. Since 1993 the company has been in collaboration with the American Drama Group Europe. The artistic director of TNT is Paul Stebbings, whose work has won many awards at, for example, the Munich Biennale, the Edinburgh Festival, the Tehran Festival and from the government of Singapore. Other notable festivals in which the company has participated are the International Off-Broadway Festival in New York, the Tokyo International Theatre festival and the summer festival of the British National Theatre. TNT has also collaborated on co-productions with major venues such as the Athens Concert Hall and the St Petersburg State Comedy Theatre.

The company style aims to integrate all the performing arts. TNT productions always include a specially commissioned score by a leading composer. The director always works with a choreographer and the ensemble actors are chosen for their ability to cross the disciplines of theatre, music and dance.

Press Review

“Astonishingly inventive and wonderfully unpredictable, their visual inventiveness defies description.” - THE SCOTSMAN, Edinburgh Festival

“TNT embodies all the qualities of British theatre.” - SUDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, Munich

“Touring theatre at its best”. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, Hong Kong

“Highly effective and charismatic theatre.” - VILLAGE VOICE, New York.

“The audience were held in a vice like grip from the first moment...the company demonstrate how Shakespeare can be made relevant to the modern world.” - JAPAN TIMES, Tokyo

“If young people need to be persuaded to go to the theatre this is the company to see.” – SUDKURIER, Germany

“Forget the big operas, it is TNT's jazz drama that is the hit of the Biennale.” - F.A.Z, Frankfurt

“The best Hamlet I have seen in nearly thirty years as an international critic.” - IRAN ITI THEATRE MAGAZINE, Tehran.

“The most entertaining play at this year's festival.” - THE LIST, Edinburgh.

“Despite the fact that the company performed in English the state comedy theatre was packed out every night. We have seen nothing like this dynamic style of theatre.” - ENTRE ACT MAGAZINE,? St Petersburg.

International Tour of TNT Theatre

TNT has toured to almost every corner of Britain, from London's National theatre to Scottish village halls. The company has received regular subsidy from the Arts Council of Britain and the British Council. TNT's music theatre version of Shakespeare's KING LEAR recently toured the UK to an outstanding critical reception.

TNT, in collaboration with ADGE has dominated English language theatre in Germany since 1993 giving over 500 performances a year.

TNT gives some fifty performances a year in major theatres of Switzerland and Austria.

TNT has been touring Japan since 1992 and has given more foreign language performances in more venues than any other non-Japanese company.

TNT is the only English Language theatre to perform regularly in major theatres nationwide in France.

TNT has toured Scandinavia since 1986 and the summer castle tour is particularly successful.

TNT's first foreign performance was in Amsterdam, Holland in 1981. This has evolved into a regular circuit in Belgium and Luxembourg, where they are the leading foreign theatre ensemble.

TNT works in high profile venues and festivals with the cooperation of the Athens Concert Hall, and the Volos Centre for Music Theatre of Greece.

TNT presents on average 12 weeks of performances a year in the Czech Republic and performed in Slovakia in 2004 and 2005. The company has been toured regularly in Poland from 1989 until 2007.

TNT toured Russia from 1990 – 1997, and toured Ukraine twice, being the first foreign theatre company to perform in several Ukrainian theatres since the Revolution.

TNT performs annually in the Gulf states of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Dubai. At the Fajr Festival in Tehran (the Muslim World's largest Arts Festival) TNT won first prize for HAMLET in 2004. 3000 people saw HAMLET in Iran and 2000 visited MACBETH in Kuwait.

TNT has performed in either Singapore or Hong Kong every year since 1994, and received Singapore National Youth Arts Achievement award in 2004.

TNT has presented theatre on two occasions in the USA. In 2006 TNT toured to Central America sponsored by Costa Rica's Cafe Britt. A tour of MACBETH is planned in autumn 2007 and two co-productions in Costa Rica and Peru are under way.

TNT's first performances in China mainland were in November 2005 when MACBETH was presented in Shanghai at the Dramatic Arts Centre. In 2007, presented by Milky Way Arts & Communications Co. Ltd, TNT toured Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou with Oliver Twist followed by the tours of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Beijing and The Taming of the Shrew to Beijing and Xiamen.