Media Release
For immediate release
July 13, 2006
Actor Raoul Bhaneja plays all the Danes in Hamlet (solo) at The Banff Centre
Hamlet (solo): directed by Robert Ross Parker
July 21 and 23 · 7:30 p.m. – July 22 · 2 p.m. matinee
Margaret Greenham Theatre, The Banff Centre
$15 adult · $12 student / senior · $8 child
Tickets and information: 403.762.6301 or 800.413.8368
Presented as part of the 2006 Banff Summer Arts Festival
Over the course of two hours, actor Raoul Bhaneja switches identities between 17 characters, interpreting the text of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved plays in Hamlet (solo). He moves easily between portrayals of the vengeful Danish prince Hamlet, the ghost of the recently killed king of Denmark, Hamlet’s duplicitous mother Gertrude, his (possibly) suicidal love Ophelia, court spies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and all the other major and minor characters who populate the drama. On July 21 to 23, Bhaneja brings Hamlet (solo) to Banff as part of the 2006 Banff Summer Arts Festival.
Developed over a six-year period with director Robert Ross Parker, the show is pared down to three elements — the actor, the text, and the audience. In Bhaneja’s words, it combines the ancient practice of storytelling with the more modern invention of the one-man show, and turns an unadorned spotlight on Shakespeare’s glorious language and ingenious plotting.
Premiered at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille’s Backspace earlier this year, the show’s development is also the subject of a documentary directed by American Film Institute graduate and rising star Jeff Stephenson called Hamlet: To Be Or Not that will be broadcast in 2007 on BRAVO.
“For many of us, our most powerful experience with the play Hamlet occurred on our first reading of it, outside the theatre, where we, alone, had to conjure up the setting, characters, and drama,” says Bhaneja, who travelled around the world watching productions of Hamlet and interviewing actors who had played The Dane in preparation for his solo. “With this production, the audience is guided through the actual text, almost in the way an ancient storyteller might do, where the actor / storyteller provides an outline or sketch of a character that the viewer extrapolates and builds upon.”
An accomplished stage, television, and film actor, Raoul Bhaneja’s theatre credits include Helen’s Necklace and The Domino Heart for Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. He was featured in the Canadian television productions “Train 48” and “At the Hotel.” On film, he has co-starred in Atom Egoyan’s Ararat, Touch of Pink with Kyle McLachlan, and most recently in The Sentinel with Kiefer Sutherland and Michael Douglas. This year Bhaneja was a resident actor with The Banff Centre’s playRites Colony and is currently developing future projects.
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High resolution, downloadable photos.
More information on the 2006 Banff Summer Arts Festival.
Media Contact
Jill Sawyer
Media and Communications Officer, The Banff Centre
403.762.6475
