Roger Torns’s Hamlet is a teenager dressed in a hoodie, sunglasses and a fanny pack, the central figure of Parking Shakespeare’s new summer production. The company has been bringing Shakespearean works to the park for 17 years and, this year, is presenting for the first time the classic Hamlet with a renewed, modern version where aspects such as the patriarchal system or the corruption of society are questioned.
As every summer, the Parc dels Til·lers, inside the park of the Estació del Nord, becomes a theater stage. The company thus pays homage to that Shakespeare that was performed at the Globe Theatre of London, an open-air theater that, at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th, was the space where the works of the English playwright could be enjoyed. The performances were in the afternoons (just like those offered by this company from Barcelona), since it was the time of day when natural light could be used before the sun set.
In this very “Shakespearean” atmosphere is where we Barcelonians who decide to go discover the latest proposal from Parking Shakespeare meet every July. And this year has been no exception: the park, with its usual passing of people, children’s games, and barking dogs, becomes an almost sacred space to receive the words of the author who left us great theatrical gems like the very famous “To be or not to be” monologue from Hamlet, the play we were able to enjoy yesterday.
A version adapted to the modern styling and sensibility
The director, actor, and playwright Roger Torns signs this version of Hamlet; a version that has another name (Hamlet i les coses podrides) because, despite being faithful to the original text, he has rewritten all the classic verse and has changed the order of some scenes. Thus, the play does not begin as the classic piece does (at night and on the walls of Elsinore Castle in Denmark), but starts with Horaci (played by Ariadna Matas), Hamlet’s friend who is in charge of narrating his story. And, to do so, is presented to us as the director of an improvised theater company whose goal is to reconstruct the protagonist’s story and thus be able to honour his dying wish before dying poisoned.
This double reading of metatheatre makes the proposal breathe humor and freshness. On stage, we see the characters playing their roles, but sometimes, they forget the text, they don't know how to continue with their stage movement or they don't remember that they have to change the attrezzo. This gives it a very funny touch and manages to make a tragedy like Hamlet become a comedy where the audience moves between laughter and surprise.
The Hamlet (played by Lluís Català) that we see in the park is a young man with a very current aesthetic and who is not presented as the perfect hero, but rather as someone who does not fit in in the world he has had to live in and who feels pressured by his environment. The ghosts (yes, in plural, because in this version there is not only one, but there are multiple ghosts who speak with the character) explain to him the dark truth about his uncle and ask him, demand from him, revenge.
Hamlet, to satisfy the wishes of his dead father and to be able to recover the honor taken from his family, has to commit an act he does not want to carry out: kill his uncle. But he, in love with Ophelia, shows himself as a more vulnerable, more reflective being, the only character who stops the engines to consider if, really, he wants to continue with the path laid out for him.
This is the same pressure that suffocates other characters such as Ophelia (played by Àngela Coma). Hamlet's beloved who, normally, is presented as a crazed and out-of-control woman, is now shown as a victim of society and the patriarchal system. Manipulated and mistreated by those around her, she ultimately comes to see death as her only escape: she chooses "Not to be" over "To be", because "To be" hurts too much.
An agile, fun and metatheatrical comedy
The metatheatre proposal allows the play to be performed in 70 minutes. The character of Horacio is in charge of narrating the course of events and, there are moments, in which he informs us that we are turning pages of the play to lighten the pace. These notes give it a very current air and create a great complicity with the audience who are surprised to see a tragedy grinning from ear to ear.
Claudius (played by Adrià Díaz) is Hamlet's uncle, the embodiment of greed and the most abysmal corruption. He has been capable of killing his brother and, shortly after, marrying his wife. Díaz embodies a character with great strength and stage presence, but who also works very well in the comic scenes: hidden behind the tiny trees, he lets his true selfish and cowardly side show through his asides.
Minimal set design, but very visual
One of the most notable points of Parking Shakespeare's productions is that they barely use any scenography. In this proposal of Hamlet i les coses podrides, we only see a blue armchair, representing the throne of power, the main theme of the play. And nothing else is needed. The company manages to fill the stage with very visual elements such as the ghosts, the sword fight (very well choreographed and exciting), and the most beautiful and poetic moment of the proposal: Ophelia's suicide.
The character of Ophelia is placed at the center of the stage, in a white nightgown and, while her fateful death by drowning in the river is narrated, she takes a bucket and pours over herself pink and white flowers with which she will later be covered. It is a moment full of visual beauty.
Parking Shakespeare has once again paid a fitting tribute to William Shakespeare. Their play Hamlet is revisited and readapted to contemporary sensibilities to break with stereotypes and presenting Shakespeare’s characters as recognisably human: vulnerable, conflicted and haunted by the same question that still resonates today—to be or not to be.