Towards genotype Hamlet

Opening night 1^st February 2020, Konzorcij OSMO/ZA, Ljubljana
Running time 70 minutes. No intermission.

Director Dragan Živadinov
Dramaturg Katja Markič
Set designer Katarina Majcen
Costume designers Nika Dolgan, Katja Vrenko
Sound designer Dario Seraval
Lighting designer Janez Kocjan
Photography Željko Stevanić

Cast
Hamlet Klemen Kovačič
Ophelia Klara Kuk
Gertrude Lea Mihevc
Claudius Jure Žavbi

Supervisors
For direction and acting izr. prof. Jernej Lorenci, doc. Branko Jordan
For dramaturgy doc. dr. Blaž Lukan, izr. prof. Tomaž Toporišič
For set design izr. prof. mag. Jasna Vastl
For costume design prof. Janja Korun, asist. mag. Tina Kolenik
For stage speech asist. dr. Nina Žavbi, doc. Alojz Svete

As the dramaturg Katja Markič wrote about the production, Shakespeare’s renaissance royal tragedy in the adaptation by the French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès happens over one day and one night. Concentration, sharp features and incessant activity of the protagonists show this drama of clear vectorial relationships to be mercilessly modern, one in which all four characters have to renounce everything that is human in them. Such is the demand of the time. The madness and the walking on the edge of mental peace are no longer just pertinent to Hamlet, because all the characters move on the verge of madness. Claudius, as the representative of the powers, is faced with hesitation and doubts, usually described as Hamlet-like, and this unpredictability in a position of power only makes him all the more dangerous, criminal, as evil is the drive of the contemporary time. The production, by examining genetic material of Hamlet, written into the art through the questions of essence and the ontological dissonance in general, tackles the painful reality of the contemporary extremes that provoke revolt even in those actors who have to, with the weight of collective consciousness about the past of the humankind, get onstage again and again, not only Shakespeare’s, but particularly our world.