Sunneva Ása Weisshappel

Hamlet tragedy by William Shakespeare Something is wrong in the state of Denmark. Prince Hamlet faintly feels it. At his place of study in Wittenberg, he received the news of his father’s surprising death. Returning to Helsingor for the funeral, he finds himself at the mother’s wedding party with his uncle. This marriage inherits the brother as ruler. Hamlet is dismayed. Rumors and guesswork at the court do further. At night the ghost of his father appears to him, who tells him that he has been murdered and that he will take revenge. Driven by the search for truth, as a stranger in his own family, scenting conspiracies everywhere, the young prince plays the crazy man and takes the risk on his way of sacrificing innocent people to get to the perpetrators. Shakespeare used a Nordic legend from the Historia Danica by Saxo Grammaticus (late 12th century) as a model for this drama. In addition to the genre of classic revenge tragedy, he developed a multi-layered piece about politics and violence, about power and morality, but also about an unhappy love, a complicated mother-son relationship and the struggle of the generations. The Icelandic director Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson, born in 1978 and raised in a theater family, completed his directing training at the Reykjavik Art Academy and at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Art in Berlin. For the first time, he will direct the Schauspiel Hannover and with this work also commemorate the famous production by Nicolas Stemann that he saw at this house 15 years ago.

Directed by Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson

Stage design for Vytautas Narbutas

Costume and visual art design Sunneva Ása Weisshappel and Katrína Mogensen

Musical direction Gabriel Cazes

Dramaturgy Judith Gerstenberg

Hamlet

2017