Shakespeare's Day To The Interregnum
Shakespeare wrote the role of Hamlet for Richard Burbage, tragedian of The Lord Chamberlain's Men: an actor with a capacious memory for lines, and a wide emotional range. Hamlet appears to have been Shakespeare's fourth most popular play during his lifetime, eclipsed only by Henry VI Part 1, Richard III and Pericles. Although the story was set many centuries before, at The Globe the play was performed in Elizabethan dress.
Hamlet was acted by the crew of the ship Dragon, off Sierra Leone, in September 1607. The play was first performed in South East Asia (present's Indonesia) in 1609. Court performances occurred in 1619 and in 1637, the latter on 24 January at Hampton Court Palace. G R Hibbard argues that, since Hamlet is second only to Falstaff among Shakespeare's characters in the number of allusions and references in contemporary literature, the play must have been performed with a frequency missed by the historical record.
Read more about this topic: Hamlet In Performance
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