Hamlet

The purpose of a play “ is to hold were the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure”. These words, which HAMLET directs at the actors also apply to this production. “It’s perfectly clear” says Ragnar Lyth, its director “that Hamlet is an extremely living play, which allows us to talk about people in our own day to see that there is something rotten in the state, and that the time is out of joint. But something rotten in the state, and that the time is out of joint. But how are we to live in it? And turn it in the right direction?” It is a young Hamlet we encounter in Stellan Skarsgard. A student returning from Witenberg with noble, humanitarian ideas, and now cast brusquely into the harsh reality. When he finds himself compelled, on his own, to fight the rottenness of the Danish state, it is no great step to the terrorist problem of our own days! The production is based on only 40% of Shakespeare’s text. Performed in its entirety, the play would take about 6 hours... which is why it has rarely been staged without cut.