DIE HAMLETMASCHINE
Die Hamlet Machine
This production of Die Hamlet Maschine is unique, incorporating live improvised music into the action of the drama. The actors and musicians form a unified performing ensemble, cast members and players creating a dynamic and spontaneous performance that allows the text of the play to achieve its powerful intensity and impact.
The play will be performed in its original German version by native German-speaking actors. Texts and an English translation will be provided.
The play is a set of five monologues in five acts that takes the Shakespearean drama Hamlet as its point of departure, with the characters of Hamlet and Ophelia exploring their roles in the classic drama and discovering their new identities and purposes. Hamlet transcends his historical role, coming to terms with his historical struggle and attempting to define himself as a modern existential being. Ophelia does the same. Her character encompasses all women, and rejects oppression and subjugation. The playwright created stage directions that were intentionally difficult or unrealizable. A new character, the Narrator, was created that interjects the stage directions and comments on the drama.
The play is intentionally unperformable in the traditional sense. Apropos of this, Müller made this comment: “…its unperformability certainly stands for stagnation.” This production grapples with this issue by a reliance on the text of the play to convey the context and meaning of the drama in conjunction with the music which functions as the “id” to support, contradict and ultimately blend in gestalt with the “ego” of the play’s text. Using improvisation as opposed to strictly defined composition allows the drama to encounter itself on psychological and physical levels, reaching highs and lows in a fluid manner.
The play will be preceded by a pre-performance introductory talk by a drama scholar and Q&A session.
April 9, 2014, 9:00 PM at Spectrum NYC, 121 Ludlow Street, NYC
April 11 and 12, 8:00 PM at Theater Flamboyan in the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 107 Suffolk Street, NYC
For tickets and more information go to: hamletmaschine.com
VENUE
Spectrum NYC & Theater Flamboyan
Spectrum NYC: 121 Ludlow Street
Theater Flamboyan: 107 Suffolk Street