"Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

More ink has been spilled on “Hamlet” than on any other Shakespeare play – perhaps more than on any other work of theater in the world. Through its ocean of performative interpretations, “Hamlet” functions as a barometer of the sensitivities and critical thinking of each age. Hamlet’s core question, “to be or not to be” – one that has seared itself on the collective imagination – is but one manifestation of the angst that permeates the work of this great Elizabethan playwright.

“Never in literature has any creature spoken in ways so brutal, so raw, so inflexible about matters of existential importance to humankind as did Hamlet.”
–Yorgos Himonas

“In a world where every ghost, dead or alive, can only perform the same action, revenge, or clamor for more of the same from beyond the grave, all voices are interchangeable. You can never know for certain which ghost is addressing whom. […] If all characters are caught in a cycle of revenge, that extends in all directions beyond the limits of its action, ‘Hamlet’ has no beginning and no end.”
–René Girard, “A Theater of Envy”

“In tragedy, the past impinges upon the present, demanding of each new generation reparations for the sins of its forefathers. The ghost of Hamlet’s father symbolically kills Hamlet […].”
–Jan Kott, “The Theater of Essence”

“Hamlet” (1600-1) was first presented in Greece on October 15, 1866 by the Soutsas Theater Company, in a translation by Ioannis Pervanoglou, and with Pandelis Soutsas in the role of Hamlet.

Dionysis Kapsalis was born in Athens in 1952. He studied literature in the US and London. He has published poetry, essays, and translations of poetry. For the theater, he has translated “Happy Days” by Samuel Beckett, and the Shakespeare plays “Romeo and Juliet”, “King Lear”, “Othello”, “Pericles”, and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. He works at the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation (MIET), where he has served as Director since 1999. He teaches literature at the National Theater of Greece Drama School. He sits on the Board of Trustees of both the National Library of Greece, and the Athens School of Fine Arts.

16 January 2015

After performance talk with Yannis Houvardas

Moderated by Grigoris Ioannidis, theater critic and assistant professor of Drama Studies, University of Athens