Very Good Hamlet

Since all times before our era, hundreds, thousands and millions of bodies have carried the iconic figure of Hamlet. Each of his subsequent incarnations leaves a mark, but also dilutes the original. “Very Very Hamlet” is a gothic thrash time capsule in which Hamlet's body is subjected to a performative autopsy. In the classic “Hamlet” the corpse is laid thickly. Death is anticipated there, anchored in metaphysics. Contemplating the meaning of existence, the hero expands it to cosmic proportions, and in the finale of the drama, the bodies fall like flies, defenseless against poison and swords. The speed with which heroes die is almost hilarious.

Laughter and death are only a few letters apart. These acts are suspiciously similar to each other, both open their mouths, hold their breath, knock the body out of balance. One is the explosion of life, the other the end of it, but from the outside they can look almost the same. In both cases, the human body becomes frivolous — either momentarily or forever.

On stage you can die with impunity, repeatedly, which is why “Very Very Hamlet” is a funeral firecracker: a compulsive remix of bodies and identities, conquered by an absurd sense of humor and a grotesque form. Pathos is mixed here with comedy, modern language parasitizes on Shakespearean phrase.

Knapik and Kowańska build the stage as the palimpsest of the national team. The theater in this performance is a place of reproduction of gestures and complexes, voices and sounds. The actors here are pawns and a chessboard at the same time (oh yeah). They try on roles, quote them, process them, abandon them. The play does not reconstruct Shakespeare's plot, but pulls the protagonist out of the prosthetic cold room to see if it can still be played?

Director: Dominika Knapik Screenplay: Patrycja Kowańska Choreography and set concept: Dominika Knapik Dramaturgy, video: Patrycja Kowańska Costumes: Klaudia Hegab Music and sound: Szymon Lechowicz Light direction: Wolfgang Macher Scenographic cooperation: Karolina Grygier Director's assistant: Julia Sempołowicz Inspire Guest: Karol Gromek Fencing consultancy: Kamil Matusewicz Visual identity of the performance: Marcin Markowski

For me super- comic “Very Hamlet”, a little funny but a little heavy, aesthetically coherent, black-grotesque. Go!

The dynamic direction of Knapik and the expressive language Kowańska uses when rewriting Hamlet and even the editing of the attraction would not guarantee the success that their performance deserved, if not for the phenomenal actors and sensational actresses of the Polish Theatre. The sinister faces of Michał Kaleta, the sweetness of Monika Roszko's gaze, the composure of Mariusz Adamski, the clumsiness of Alan Al-Murtatha, the control of Ewa Szumska's gesture and the freedom of Kornelia Trawkowska are additional assets of Vera Vera Hamlet. Knapik and Kowańska lead the audience through scenes of the prince's meeting with his father's ghost, his conversation with Ophelia, dialogue with his mother in her bedroom and banter with the gravediggers. Up to the duel sequence that leaves no one a choice: as in the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not alive from the beginning, it is known that death awaits everyone at the end. And although in amusement it is difficult for us to believe it, it will not pass us by either. Very Very Hamlet is a mosaic of Hamlet that turns out to be a brig from dying. Funny how tragic it is — deadly.

In relation to the Shakespearean text, the artists show great vigilance and sense of rhythm. The original - in some places long, baroque in its phrasing - is regularly “pierced” with contemporary notes (Patrycja Kowańska is responsible for the script): short punctuation, ironic comments and sometimes even blunt, vulgar insinuations. This treatment works primarily comically, precisely marking the moments in which the pathos of classical language is pierced. Importantly, the line between Shakespeare's text and the note remains legible - we know when the parenthesis begins and when it closes. Thanks to this, the tension present on the stage between the “high” and the “low” linguistic register is not blurred, but becomes one of the main sources of humor.

A clever meta-novel about Shakespeare's most famous hero and a perverse lecture on the history of Hamlet adaptations intertwine in this performance with a personal, intimate confession about death. Although it is constantly obscured by accurate jokes and - quite consciously - sewn with very thick threads, it turns out to be very moving and leaves a deep mark. The disinvolution in the approach to classical drama is effectively conquered by great, original staging and choreographic ideas, which the versatile cast implements with powerful energy and flair.

The story takes place in the funeral home of Vera Hamlet, whose six employees, out of their love for Elizabethan theatre and emo aesthetics, comically play scenes from the drama (...) but they wash them out of all Shakespearean habits and cram them into a convention of deliberate artificiality and grotesque. They then become like puppets in the hands of a crazy stage director, playing with Shakespearean characters for fun and wit. And since the protagonists of the play are people who work in the funeral home (and in Shakespeare's drama the corpse thickens), the theme of death becomes an essential element of the plot, although it is not handled so fatally again seriously.

In Very Very Hamlet, the artists place the action in a funeral home. Not at all to suggest that the place of this text is today on the sectional table. On the contrary: Knapik and Kowańska prove that Shakespeare's hero is still alive, but above all as a sum of quotes, clichés, paintings or afterimages. They show the evolution of Hamlet: successive performances, recurring plots, different incarnations of this character, as well as what the archdrama takes root more and more firmly in culture with each subsequent reading: the experience of death.The codes used by Dominika Knapik, also aesthetic ones, are firmly immersed in pop culture: the slogans “memento mori” or “dead inside” on T-shirts, tight-fitting costumes that bring to mind Halloween disguises for death. Actors and actresses loop classic Hamlet phrases, and their voices sound mechanical, as if they had been passed through a razor anonymizing utterances. Everything happens very quickly, and the spectacularity of the show is even self-ironically emphasized by the performers, who, when they are not playing, sit on the sides of the stage and eat popcorn.

Please note — the show includes louder sound effects. Flashing images and strobe lights are used in the performance. There is also a scene involving nudity in the show.