2018 – Hamlet

Hamlet
Written by William Shakespeare. Adapted by James Elliott.

This adaptation of Hamlet, played by an all female cast, looks at the existential relationship between actor and character, character and soul, and soul and actor. The question is asked: “What if Hamlet became aware that his existence is fictional; merely a character in a play?”

What follows is a perspective of Shakespeare’s tragedy aligns the motivations of our hero through the lens of a person who knows their death is eternal, whose body is unbound, and whose life is but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets their hour upon the stage until they are heard no more.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Upon the death of his father, and the subsequent remarrying of his mother to his uncle, Prince Hamlet of Denmark wrestles with the question of moral action. The appearance of a ghost resembling his late  father, instructing him to revenge his most foul and unnatural murder, sends Hamlet into an existential torment of action and inaction, of revenge, and of a mad duty bound to the purgation of his soul. Will he kill his uncle to revenge his father, or will his inactions cost him much much more?

Directors:
James Elliott & Kat Dekker