It opens with two flashlights, standing on a tabletop, nervously awaiting the arrival of a cheese grater. Or rather: the ghost of a grater, with a thirst for vengeance – and a slender glass-bottle son who may or may not get the job done.
This is Hamlet, as you’ve never seen it. Instead of a stage, a table. Instead of players, humble household and supermarket items: a canister of flea powder standing in for the murderous usurper King Claudius; a pepper grinder for Queen Gertrude. Instead of the usual three to four hours, just one. Instead of Shakespeare’s poetic prose, a single performer delivers a narrative re-enactment. “To be or not to be” – one of drama’s most vaunted soliloquies – boils down to: “Hamlet comes along and he’s thinking about death – again.”
