Cast announced for stage premiere of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet at RSC’s Swan Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Company will reopen its Swan Theatre with a new stage adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet.
The RSC and Neal Street Productions, in association with Hera Pictures will present the world-premiere, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti from 1 April – 17 June 2023.
The story pulls back a curtain on the imagined life of William Shakespeare and the woman and family who influenced his work.
Making her RSC debut in the role of Agnes Hathaway is Madeleine Mantock, with Tom Varey playing William Shakespeare, also making his RSC debut. Peter Wight returns to the RSC for the first time since 1997 to play John/Will Kempe.
The company also includes; Sarah Belcher (Joan), Will Brown (Burbage/Father John), Haydn Burke (Ensemble), Ajani Cabey (Hamnet/Thomas Day) Faye Campbell (Ensemble), Frankie Hastings (Eliza), Karl Haynes (Ned), Alex Jarrett (Judith), Hannah McPake (Jude), Rose Riley (Tilly/Caterina), Elizabeth Rider (Mary), Harmony Rose-Bremner (Susanna) and Obioma Ugoala (Bartholomew).
Warwickshire, 1582. Agnes Hathaway, a natural healer, meets the Latin tutor, William Shakespeare. Drawn together by powerful but hidden impulses, they create a life together and make a family.
As William moves to London to discover his place in the world of theatre, Agnes stays at home to raise their three children, but she is the constant presence and purpose of his life.
When the plague steals 11-year-old Hamnet from his loving parents, they must each confront their loss alone. And yet, out of the greatest suffering, something of extraordinary wonder is born.
Hamnet is directed by Erica Whyman, who is Acting Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Set and costume design is by Tom Piper, lighting by Prema Mehta, sound by Xana, music by Oğuz Kaplangi, casting by Amy Ball CDG, movement by Ayse Tashkiran and fights by Kate Waters.
Erica Whyman, Acting Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, said: “I could not be more thrilled to be directing this adaptation of ‘Hamnet’. Maggie’s beautiful novel moved and inspired me in the darkest days of lockdown as it did for so many. It is high time we heard the compelling story of Agnes Hathaway and her children, voices that have been somewhat neglected, and who offer a wholly new perspective on ‘her Poet’.
“It has been a privilege to collaborate with Lolita and her adaptation is also a celebration of the power of theatre. It is especially fitting that this production will reopen the unique Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, evoking as it does a different time in the town, one that not only gave birth to our house playwright but one which knew what it was to live through waves of pandemic, of grief and recovery. I am delighted to be collaborating once more with Tom Piper, Prema Mehta and Oğuz Kaplangi, all of whom relish the theatrical possibilities of the Swan and the emotional power of this story.”
Added Lolita Chakrabarti said: “I am so thrilled to have been given the opportunity to adapt Maggie O’Farrell’s much-loved novel for the stage. It has been a gift to absorb this story and to imagine Anne Hathaway (Agnes in the book) and her husband William Shakespeare. It has been a fascinating task to look at our greatest writer in the English language as a man, not a genius, and to discover the family behind him and the influences on his work. As part of my research, I have greatly enjoyed experiencing Stratford and visited many of the buildings and streets Shakespeare and Agnes would have inhabited.
“While the facts about the Shakespeare family are limited, this is a universal story about a family’s dynamics, the devastating effects of a child’s death, the necessary reinvention after loss and how new writing is formed. It has been a privilege to recreate and imagine the life of an often forgotten but important figure, Mrs Shakespeare. And to be re-opening the Swan Theatre with this play is very exciting indeed, bringing back a much loved and beautiful performance space here in the heart of Stratford-upon-Avon where Agnes and William can live again.”
And original author Maggie O’Farrell said: “I couldn’t be happier that the RSC will be premiering their stage adaption of Hamnet at the Swan Theatre. The motivation, for me, in writing the novel was to give a voice and a presence to the only son of William Shakespeare, who died when he was eleven and has ever since been relegated to a literary footnote in his father’s biography.
“I wanted to write a book that put this forgotten child centre-stage, to say to the world that he was important, he was grieved, his life was significant, and that without his early death, we wouldn’t have Hamlet and we wouldn’t have Twelfth Night. It has been a joy from start to finish to work with the RSC, Erica Whyman and Lolita Chakrabarti on bringing this adaptation into being. That Hamnet the boy will now be appearing in a play with his name, in the very town where he lived and died, is an incredibly moving thought. I’m so grateful to everyone involved in this exciting venture.”
For more information and tickets, visit www.rsc.org.uk
