HAMLET DOUBLE BILL

In the first act, with a light-hearted and humorous tone, three actors attempt (with delightful awkwardness) to tell the entire Hamletstory in just 25 minutes. The second act shifts to a more somber and nostalgic atmosphere, focusing on two gravediggers tasked with burying all the characters from the tragedy. As they dig, they encounter the spirits of key figures—Claudius, Ophelia, and Hamlet himself—each seeking redemption or a chance to tell their side of the story, hoping never to be forgotten.

Why “Double Bill”? Well the idea is to give voice to two different points of view of the Hamlet story: that of the Gravediggers and of the Players. Gravediggers and Players are the material executors of the fate that revolves around Elsinore: if the Players are the spark that ignites in Hamlet the idea of unmasking King Claudius through the staging of what happened at the Danish court, the Gravediggers are the end of the suffering of the characters in the text, the last witnesses of their presence on earth: “Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?’/ ‘…a grave-maker: the houses that he makes last till doomsday.” And it is precisely this unconscious importance they both hold throughout the text that makes them, unbeknownst to themselves, such comic characters.

Featuring live music inspired by both 16th-century English ballads and Italian folk tunes, Hamlet Double Billis performed in English with some Italian influences.