BWW Preview: The Globe Theatre on Film Series Comes to Canada; 6 Performances to be Broadcast

This summer, London's Globe Theatre thrilled Prescott and area audiences with its presentation of "Hamlet," the only Canadian stop on its current international tour.

Today at 12 noon (December 27th) in Toronto, the esteemed company, in partnership with MEI Events International and Arts Alliance, will continue to spread the Bard's good word in a screening of six plays starting with "A Midsummer Night's Dream," part of its very popular "Shakespeare's Globe on Screen" series. It will be "A Midwinter Afternoon's Treat."

This is the series' first screening in Canada. During the past three years, its international audiences have grown steadily with a record-breaking season in 2013 of more than 2,000 screenings in 12 countries. Sales increased by more than 300 percent over 2012. Its most popular screening was "Twelfth Night" starring Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry. (When the production appeared on Broadway, Rylance won a 2014 Tony Award for his gender-bending performance of Olivia. Jenny Tiramani also won a Tony for her costume design.)

Future screenings include "The Taming of the Shrew" on Jan. 24th and "The Tempest" on Feb. 21st. In addition to "Twelfth Night," others announced are "Henry V" and "Macbeth." Dates and times are to be announced.

Landmark Theatres, Canada's second largest movie theatre chain will screen these plays as well as independent cinemas, such as the Bloor, and post-secondary institutions and performing arts centres that form part of MEI's Alternative Cinema Network.

All six performances will be broadcast in High Definition in their entirety with, as the press release says, "pristine digital quality with full 5.1 surround sound" recreating the immediacy of the performances as if moviegoers were at the Globe Theatre in person.

Shakespeare Globe's artistic director Dominic Dromgoole said he is delighted to take these plays internationally to cinemas where they will play with the latest releases. These sold-out productions of Shakespeare's greatest plays that were seen by thousands of people in London will now reach a far wider audience around the globe, he said. "From Colin Morgan's otherworldly Ariel ("The Tempest") to Samantha Spiro's earthy, tempestuous Lady Macbeth, 2013 was a season of dazzling performances in definitive productions."

This is the latest in the London Globe's initiative to take the Bard to the people of the world. Its current "Globe to Globe: Hamlet," created to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth on April 23rd, 1564, is visiting 205 countries. It's finale on April 23rd, 2016 will play right where it began, at the Globe Theatre. Its penultimate engagement will be at Elsinore Castle in Denmark, the setting of the play.

The only Canadian stop in Prescott was magical. The players presented the tragedy as part of the 12-year-old summer St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival. It was staged in an outdoor amphitheatre on the banks of the majestic river, neighboring the Thousand Islands, just 15 km east of Brockville and 100 km east of Kingston, a 3.5 hour drive east from Toronto.

Why magical? I remember, as our Danish prince recites the words ... "This most excellent canopy, the air ... look you! This brave o'er hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire..." you could tilt your head back and bask in the crepuscular sky of salmon pinks and indigo blue with the first evening stars appearing. What a piece of work is the Bard, indeed!

Throughout these two years, the company is travelling by planes, trains, boats and buses around the world. They are performing in theatres and town squares as well as on beaches and in jungle clearings.

At one point in their European leg, they played four countries in five days. Following the Caribbean and North and South America, they travelled down the coast of Africa, into Australia and the Pacific Islands, one of the hardest parts logistically. Then, on to Indonesia, Japan, China and Asia before heading back up the coast of Africa to Denmark and back home to the Globe in London.

"It's a great way to keep everybody focused," said Dromgoole. "I'm delighted by the ambition and energy of the company. If we're doing every country in the world, it has to be every country. We're not going to leave anyone out. All the 'Stans, South and North Korea - we're very keen to get into North Korea. Antarctica? F**k yeah!"

Well, as Puck says in "A Midsummer Night's Dream,"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" And aren't we the lucky ones!?

It's an eight-actor, stripped down production with a company of 12 members to accommodate illness and days off. They play two dozen roles between them, whipping through Shakespeare's longest play in a little more than two-and-a-half hours.

Today's modern reconstruction of the Globe, officially named "Shakespeare's Globe," opened in 1997 and is located on the south bank of the River Thames in Bankside, approximately 230 m. (750 ft.) from the original theatre's site.