Hamlet
by William Shakespeare

The award-winning Lithuanian director Oskaras Koršunovas takes a different approach to one of Shakespeare’s best-known works. Using Hamlet as a starting point, Koršunovas talks about more recent history and poses contemporary concerns. His Hamlet begins with the question “Who are you?” and ends with the devastating “Who am I?”. With a set consisting mainly of dressing room mirrors under a harsh white light, the classic work is fragmented by the light and shade created by the their constant repositioning. Challenging the limits of the theatrical, the actors are made-up on stage and surrounded by annoying sounds and threatening figures. What’s more, the flow of the text is forever changing, leading the characters to react in unexpected ways.

If we are to grasp the context and the decisions we make for our lives, we absolutely have to dig deep within ourselves. We might need to develop an inner ‘paranoia’ to protect ourselves from the basic mistakes we make in our efforts to understand the world around us. We must not surrender ourselves to the quiet that surrounds us. We must grasp—really, fully grasp—that the quiet is a front for something else entirely. Which is what makes Hamlet the most relevant work of all for our here and now. His question may sound a little bizarre at first. After all, we have an easy life and our future seems secure. But the truth of the matter is that this future must be sought within, not in the slogans coined by political parties or advertising agencies. We must shred the veil that conceals reality from us and explode the supposed certainty of our existence. Because a false sense of security can be a very dangerous thing indeed.

Oskaras Koršunovas