Hamlet

Philip Roth says, “Its amazing that something as tiny as the self should contain contending subselves and that these subselves should themselves be constructed of subselves and on and on and on”. I would make a completely different version of Hamlet today. In the version I made in 2015, first titled “Hamlet Who’s There?” The show takes place in two locations, Hamlet’s bedroom and the graveyard and spans 6 hours, beginning at midnight on the wedding party of Gertrude and Claudius. Everyone is divided from themselves. Purposefully so. The ghost of Hamlet’s father screams, worms, and fights its way out of Hamlet’s possessed body. Laertes pulsates his way through a blistering drum solo trying to connect with his friend. The black and inky spots that plague Gertrude’s mind’s eye shake her very core. Ophelia crawls onto the stage with the dead bleeding body of Polonius on top of her. The readiness is all, and the rest is silence. We premiered the play at Gdansk Shakespeare Festival in August 2015. Probably it was never better than that night. Over the next three years the production became slicker, better lit and more rehearsed, with several cast changes, notably a brilliant Gertrude from Katy Stephens. The night in Poland was unforgettable and set Flute theatre (and me) off on a love affair with European Shakespeare festivals, for which the flame still burns today.