Hamlet

In the organizer's words:

by William Shakespeare
from the English by Heiner Müller, with the collaboration of Matthias Langhoff
using Heiner Müller's "Hamlet Machine"
Directed by Frank Castorf

Europe 1601, two years before the death of Queen Elizabeth, the signs of the imminent end of a happy era are mounting. Shakespeare's patron, a lover of the queen, is executed, his father dies, as does his son, who was called Hamnet. A turning point, an epochal threshold, William Shakespeare writes "Hamlet" and ventures into a new dimension, beyond all known genres.

No play has provoked so many contradictory interpretations. The author places his hero and the audience in a special kind of ignorance: an ultimate not-knowing, not a weakness in decision-making or hesitation, but rather an undecidability in the decisive questions, a not-knowing from which one cannot escape, which calls everything into question. This is how "Hamlet" has irritated and fascinated readers and audiences throughout the centuries. A "ghost" appears - can it be trusted? The depravity of the current ruler is obvious - but what are the consequences? The dark spots in the history of the fathers remain dark. Where is truth stored if there is no "spirit"?

In his grandiose short drama "Hamletmaschine", Heiner Müller follows the character Hamlet through the devastating history of the 20th century. Shakespeare's play itself, he writes, "is an attempt to describe an experience that has no reality in the time of description. An endgame in the dawn of an unknown day."

With:

Paul Behren, Daniel Hoevels, Janathan Kempf, Josef Ostendorf, Alberta von Poelnitz, LInn Reusse, Angelika Richter and Lilith Stangenberg

Director: Frank Castorf
Stage: Aleksandar Denić
Costumes: Adriana Braga Peretzki
Lighting: Lothar Baumgarte
Artistic production management: Sebastian Klink
Sound design: William Minke
Video design: Andreas Deinert
Live camera: Andreas Deinert and Severin Renke
Live editing: Jens Crull and Maryvonne Riedelsheimer
Live cueing: Rebecca Dantas
Live sound anglers: Michael Gentner and Jochen Laube
Dramaturgy: Ralf Fiedler

Further information: Hamlet | Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg