“This is not a theatre production. It is not even a performance. This is not a concert. This is not real life. And this is not reality” states Julia*n Meding, a performer and electronic musician, in the opening scene, appearing as a modern-day Hamlet who rebels against reality. Written and directed by Boris Nikitin, Hamlet does not adapt Shakespeare’s play but claims it.

Nikitin writes: “We make reference to the original, but this is a completely new work… We use Hamlet to bring into play the ideas of reality, illusion, health, sickness”. Accompanied by the award-winning string quartet Der Musikalische Garten in a performance that merges punk-queer musical theatre with documentarism, the protagonist is involved in a tour de force in which he lays himself, his body and his biography bare before the eyes of the public. Is it Hamlet? Or is it even Meding? Or is it all just a game?

27, 28 June h. 8pm
Arsenale, Teatro alle Tese