Director’s Statement, Hamlet

Hamlet counts among the small set of works that only become more relevant as the centuries pass. As young people struggle with the impact of COVID, the climate crisis, and the breakdown of democracy on their futures, the questions with which Hamlet grapples continue to be profound. To be or not to be? What is this quintessence of dust? What should such fellows as I do crawling between Earth and Heaven? Revenge, lust for power, familial love, romantic love, and platonic love, each rise and fall as reasons the play’s characters use to drive themselves onward. Within Hamlet, Shakespeare predates and surpasses the existentialist philosophy of Sartre, Kierkegaard, Camus, and de Beauvoir. He challenges Hamlet and the audience with the paralyzing vista of choice laid out by our free will, and the ruin that will result from denying our own agency through indecision in bad faith. 

Adrift as Hamlet in any world, no matter how good or bad, we can only act. When we dither and delay, the currents of our lives turn awry, and lose the name of action. 

We have transported this narrative to a raiders’ compound after social collapse in the near future. In the text, Hamlet is overwhelmed by a sense of loss, uncertainty about his place in the world, and a struggle to find a reason to go on. By taking his metaphorical wasteland and turning it into a literal wasteland, the play’s central questions are thrown into stark relief. I invite the audience to consider the universality of Hamlet’s experience. 

You are welcome to Elsinore.