The performance is played close to the audience in a scene room that is now up for sale. Will Elverket become a bike shop or maybe a gym? Dramaten terminated the contract due to reduced state grants – final "Hamlet" is made with the addition "The death of theatre".
Places for art and culture, for processing existential eternal themes are being erased. What was important five years ago, such as democracy, can disappear with a swosch, notes Dramaten's CEO Mattias Andersson.
Without describing the production as a slap in the face, he says:
There will be a tremendous pressure, a nerve and an acute pressure. That's what we'll strive for.
He is delighted to have gotten "two super-strong actors" in the lead roles. Gustav Lindh and Gizem Erdogan, close friends since drama school, are thrilled to play together for the first time.
Split
Hamlet is almost paralyzed by his privileges, thinks Gustav Lindh, while Gizem Erdogan easily paints the split that Ophelia feels.
So many things are going on around her and within her, a confusion in this information chaos, in how she should relate to Hamlet, her brother, her father, to the war and to what's happening in the world.
The classic Hamlet skull will remain in the theatre's prop bag and will not be used on stage.
Rotten body parts instead, says Mattias Andersson, who had an epiphany when he saw a French production of "Hamlet" that he didn't like.
Youth Focus
Suddenly, he knew how he would do his first Shakespeare production.
I want to focus on the two young people, Hamlet and Ophelia. It really feels like they are two young people in a deceitful world that they need to navigate, instead of just being paralyzed and doubting.
"The blow" and several of the secondary characters, Andersson has cleared away. He wanted to create a concentrated and stripped-down production where both the war and the ongoing chaos of our time come closer, he explains.
And the strong pressure on young people today – "why aren't you acting, why aren't you taking a stand, why aren't you making a move?" In a world that so obviously and acutely calls for it.
Gustav Lindh hopes to capture a young audience seeking kicks.
It's a matter of life and death, time is running out, but we'll also put on a damn show, and I'll try to wring myself out like a rag.
"Taming the shrew" by Shakespeare, directed by Farnaz Arbabi, with, among others, Sara Shirpey, Maia Hansson Bergqvist, David Book, Hannes Meidal, premiering on 5/9.
"The melancholy of resistance" by László Krasznahorkai, directed by Ulla Kassius, premiering on 13/9.
"Hamlet" by Shakespeare, directed by Mattias Andersson, with, among others, Gustav Lindh, Gizem Erdogan, Anna Björk, and Shanti Roney, premiering on 27/9.
"Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert, directed and dramatized by Oliver Frljić, with, among others, Electra Hallman, Razmus Nyström, and Hamadi Khemiri, premiering on 16/10.
"Das Kapital" by Karl Marx, directed by Örjan Andersson and adapted by Magnus Lindman. 15 actors and dancers participate, premiering on 6/12.
"Glow up" by Sandra Beijer, directed by Carl Johan Karlson, premiering on Unga Dramaten on 11/9.
"Nemesis" by Hanna Nygren and Helle Rossing, who also directs, premiering on Unga Dramaten on 28/11.
The Bergman Festival's guest performances:
"Parallax" by Kata Wéber and Kornél Mundruczó, a family drama about a Jewish family and LGBTQI+ people's situation in Hungary, on 25–26/10.
"Dämon – el funeral de Bergman" by and with Spanish Angélica Liddell. On 13–14 and 20–21/9.
