Hamlet II:exit ghost

Hamlet II:exit ghost is a performance that examines the classical text of Shakespeare in different ways. It´s a artistic approach that investigates thoughts, motifs and metaphores in the text, trying to deal with memory and doubt. The two actors play the roles of Hamlet and Ophelia but transforms into Gertrude and Polonius when they need to, in order to tell the story. It´s becomes a game with identity between the two, making the doubt and madness of Hamlet ond Ophelia the center of the performance. They are in a flux between the story and the here-and-now trying to interpret the play of plays. The performance is about that struggle.

On stage there are live video editing and live composing, and also a light technician and camera men, all visible. They are making the stage a tv-studio or a laboratory where we stage and investigate the story of Hamlet. The set up is itself the play within the play, making the audience Gertrude and Cladius looking at Hamlet and Ophelia dealing with their destiny. The video editing is projected on the black back wall in the room, making the the faces and the play between the two actors to be a part of the room and the set. The video is making the room and the play even more claustrophobic enhancing the doubt and the uncertainty of the characters. The music enforces the text in different ways, and makes the production also musically challenging and interesting.

The idea behind the staging was to combine contemporary art music with performing arts. And bringing in video as an component so there would be a challenging piece where there would be possible to tell two or three different narratives, that of the music, the video, and the acting, at the same time, trying to make a performance with depth that could open up the classic text in new ways.


Participants

Jörgen Dahlqvist
Jörgen Dahlqvist is the artistic director of Teatr Weimar in Malmö. Teatr Weimar consists of a collective of performing artists who explore the boundaries and expressions of contemporary performing arts. The theatre have made over thirty productions the last five years at their own stage in Malmö and have been selected to the last two biennales in Sweden for best performances of that period. Teatr Weimar have made guestperformances in Norway, Iceland, Finland, Georgia and are invited to a festival in Berlin fall 2011 to showcase their work, and cooperate with both Dramaten and Stockholms Stadsteater in Sweden in different projects. Jörgen Dahlqvist has written and directed about fifteen productions, among them an adaption of the Ibsen play Ghost that was invited to the Ibsenfestoval at Nationaltheatret in Norway, and has collaborated with Ars Nova in a series of musictheatreprojects in the Sonat Series the last two years. He is also the dean of The Malmö Theatre Academy since 2009.

Kent Olofsson
Kent Olofsson is one of the leading composers in Sweden of his generation. He is mainly associated with chamber music, often written for instruments in combination with electronics - meticulous compositions that evolve out of a close collaboration with particular musicians and ensembles. He has composed more than 125 works; orchestra, chamber music, electroacoustic, vocal, for dance performances, rock music. He has been working with a large number of prominent musicians, orchestras and conductors, both in Sweden and internationally. His works often combines instruments and voices with electronic sounds and processes.
In fall 2010 Kent starts his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm in the new Konstnärliga Forskarskolan where he his research will focus on composition and Sonic Art Theatre.

Linda Ritzén
Linda is an actor and director. She has played in various proiductions at Teatr Weimar, among them the trilogy Elektra Revisited, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin by Jörgen Dahlqvist and Hamlet II:exit ghost. She has also played Britney Spears in the play Britney is dead. Hail Britney! that visited Dramaten and Uppsala Stadsteater after the premiere at Teatr Weimar. She directed the play Ibsen deconstruction I: Ghost that have toured scandinavia during 2010 and visited the Ibsenfestival in Norway, Lokal on Iceland, Hangö in Finland and Dramaten in Stockholm.

Rafael Pettersson
Rafael Pettersson has made several productions at Teatr Weimar, among them the trilogy Elektra Revisited, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin by Jörgen Dahlqvist and Hamlet II:exit ghost. He´s also made a lot of tv- and filmproductions in Sweden. He´s also directing and producing his own films.


Press cuttings

  In Hamlet Teatr Weimar reaches top results with the fusion of sound art, visual arts, voice, text and body .(...) Teatr Weimar artistic research laboratory continues to deliver exceptional performances / Nummer.se

It is extremely well done and continuously fascinating (...) the ground rocks beneath us, and the boundary between what is true and what is a lie, between what is fantasy and what is reality, is dissolved. / SDS

It is suggestive, it is different, it is intense, and it is very difficult to write about. Like trying to describe the experience of a thunderstorm over a field or a walk in a catacomb for someone who never experienced either. / SKD

But I want least of all be mean when I see Theatre Weimar, once again challenge our ingrained beliefs about language, power, and theater. (...) Roles are confined to their life choices, in their treachery and their promises, in their self-images and their denials. They try in vain to break out. There is no way out but death. / EXP

A Hamlet in bits - Experimental and desolate suggestive (...) you believe everything they say, even the broken and unspoken words. It´s good that not much drama is like this, even better that it exists and continues to be invented at Teatr Weimar in Malmö. / AB

So the two eternal Shakespeare characters circles around each other in a monotoneusly and repetitive flow of words, imbued with the hesitance of Hamlet and Ofelia. And then attacked in their fumbling attempts of communication by Olofsson's audio-acting "Hamlet Machine", which distorts their voices. Language dissolves and transforms it into another language, to another kind of connection, for another man in another time. / KVP

The show, which premiered in a studio in Malmo is an example of how future artistic development stage may appear by integrating text, video technology, live editing, sound, live electronic music and camera. / Danstidningen

"Hamlet" and "Ophelia" is as elusive shadows of one another's memories, of their own myths. But somewhere, they are also a young man and a young woman who is confused and compulsive seeking a space of freedom in a life and a language which definitely has been turned out of joint. / SVD

This is a show that is impressive, both in its approach and its implementation. The fusion of form, content and theme is virtually spotless and results in a work that is both fascinating and thought-provoking. / Benshi.se

Teatr Weimar shines with a well thought out and innovative staging of the parts of Hamlet's problems, with a precise merge of sound, image and text into an interesting whole. / Kulturen, a magazine on culture

 

Production facts

Text, direction, set design, costume: Jörgen Dahlqvist.
Actors and dramaturghy: Rafael Pettersson and Linda Ritzén.
Sound and live composing: Kent Olofsson.
Light design: Johan Bergman .
Camera: Nils Dernevik + Johan Nordström

Premiered nov 12, 2010 in Malmö

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