'I am walking amongst the dead, and they love me for I am one of them.
'King Hamlet is dead. Claudius is king. Hamlet is for the first time meeting themselves, like a reflection in the undercurrent of a river. There's a red light in the forest, voices on the wind, the taste of a narrative decaying. You are here at the end of all things. The sun is setting. The river is swelling. This story won't die.
'Horatio is desperate for a happier ending, and when they find themselves in a strange, stitched-together timeline with three bickering Hamlets, they think they might have an opportunity to rewrite their world into something softer. Tragedy, however, has a power of its own, and if there's any story that knows how to survive, it's a Shakespeare.
'Exploring the legacies of love, violence, and storytelling, this new work from a group of emerging student artists opens up radical new possibilities in the realm of adapting Shakespeare. Multi-disciplinary and experimental, this is a production unafraid to look you in the eye and ask: why are you still sitting there, when you already know they're all going to die?'
Source: Melbourne Fringe.
Presented by Melbourne University Shakespeare Company in association with Unspooled Theatre Collective at Gasworks Theatre, Gasworks Arts Park, as part of Melbourne Fringe, 18-22 October 2022.
Directors: Laura Charlton and Sabina Donato.