Once Upon a Time in Elsinore. Hamlet
A tragifarce in two acts
Based on William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet” in B. Pasternak’s translation
Director: Roman Gabria
Production Designer: Sergei Novikov
Light Designer: Igor Tupikin
Choreography: Nikolai Kuglyant
Musical Director: Roman Gabria
Consultant for Scenic Movement: Maxim Pakhomov
Prince Hamlet returns from university in Wittenberg to the family castle in Elsinore for his father’s funeral. However, he finds himself at a wedding: his mother marries her deceased husband’s younger brother. In a dream, the young Hamlet’s father tells him that he did not die a natural death, as the newspapers said, but that he was killed in his sleep. Will the crime remain a secret or will the guilty be punished?
The action of this famous tragedy has been transposed to the mid-twentieth century, when rock and roll provoked a new stage in the eternal conflict between “fathers and children.” The bourgeois society of the 50’s, a large clan whose family ties are intertwined by crime... Among the characters of the tragifarce, Shakespeare himself and the tragedy’s translator, the poet Boris Pasternak, will appear as visions of the mad prince...
The premiere took place on April 18th, 2014.
Duration: 3 hours with one intermission. Recommended for audiences 16 and up.
Cast:
Gertrude, widow of the previous and wife of the present king
Claudius, King of Denmark
Hamlet, son of the previous king and Gertrude, nephew to Claudius
Polonius, chief advisor to the king
Polonius’s sister
Laertes, Polonius’s son
Laertes’s fiancee
Ophelia, Polonius’s daughter and Hamlet’s beloved
Rosencrantz, Hamlet’s former friend from university
Guildenstern, Hamlet’s former friend from university
Horatio, Hamlet’s imaginary friend
Reinaldo, aide to Polonius
Osric, aide to Claudius
William Shakespeare, Actor, Ghost
Boris Pasternak
Yulia Nizhelskaya
Sergei Intyakov
Evgeni Shumeiko
Vasily Shipitsyn
Kseniya Morozova
Arseniy Semyonov, Kirill Varaksa
Arina Lykova
Marina Damineva
Vladimir Kochurov
Nikolai Kuglyant
Ilya Borisov
Evgeni Perevalov
Konstantin Grishanov
Sergei Agafonov
Sergei Alimpiev
