SHAKESPEARE

Synopsis

Video recording of a production directed by Piotr Lachmann based on Hamlet, with excerpts from the works of Polish playwrights Stanislaw Rozewicz and Helmut Kajzar. In this adaptation, keeping the memory of the father becomes both a duty and a burden to the protagonist. While the mother urges him to remember, the hero struggles with the postwar guilt as a German raised in Poland. Hamlet from Gliwice does not ask who killed his father, but rather whom his father killed while in Wehrmacht. The play becomes the means to catch the conscience of the author, actors, and the audience, rather than that of the murderer (in this production Claudius is imagined as Hitler). Metatheatrical elements are manifest throughout the production, which is framed as a rehearsal, with the actors entering in casual clothes to read the script. Zbigniew Konopka and Jolanta Lothe enact not only Hamlet and Gertrude or Lachmann and his mother, but also actors arriving to Elsinore. Most prominently, they perform themselves, contemporary actors attempting to communicate particular emotions and situations to the audience. Lachmann is present during the whole event as a VJ, a video performance artist, processing selected visual materials in real-time. Positioned on the side of the stage, he mixes, records and re-masters the images, remaining a controlling force in the production, as well as a live testimony to the events in the play. Occasionally Lachmann interacts with the actors. [Adapted from the summary provided on globalshakespeares.org database].

Language

Polish

Country

Poland

Medium

Video

Technical information

Colour / Sound

Recording date

2006

Duration

15 mins

Credits

Director

Piotr Lachmann

Music

Raphael Roginski

Cast

Jolanta Lothe
Stanislawa Lopuszanska
Zbigniew Konopka

Additional Details

Theatre

Teatr Miejski [Municipal Theatre], Gliwice, Poland

Theatre company

Videoteatr Poza

Production type

Stage Recordings

Plays

Hamlet

Subjects

Drama

Keywords

Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Notes

History

Premiere, September 17, 2006.

Reviews

Aneta Mancewicz, "'Remember thee?': Post-war ‘Memory and Guilt in Peter Piotr Lachmann’s Performance Hamlet from Gliwice’ Shakespeare Seminar (Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft) Ausgabe 7 (2009): 11-20.

Archive

Name

globalshakespeares.mit.edu

Email

globalshax-www@mit.edu

Web

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu External site opens in new window