Hamlet

To be or not to be, to kill or not to kill? Questions that always reveal something new.

On a cold night, Hamlet receives a visit from a ghost resembling his father who demands him to kill King Claudius. Although Hamlet reveres his father and feels obliged to avenge his death, he is unwilling to stab his uncle to death just because of a delusion. If he is to carry out the plan of killing Claudius, he needs to think it over. The doubts that fill Hamlet’s soul, his reluctance to take the way of violence, his worry of not doing enough to avenge his father’s murder, will lead the Danish Prince to develop such considerations about mortality and the meaning of life that almost nothing throughout history could ever equal them. Just like more recent philosophical works, e.g. The Name of the Rose or The Brothers Karamazov, philosophical thoughts in Hamlet are unfolded on the background of a bloody crime story.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616), an English playwright, actor and poet of the Elizabethan era, is the most frequently performed dramatist of all times. Shakespeare’s poetic talent is permeated with his ability to put his finger on the most delicate spots of his time. It was in the early capitalistic England that individual ambitions and identity had first emerged as thorny issues. The spectacular tragedy will be directed by Martin Čičvák.