HAMLET

Hamlet is, without a doubt, the most moving and influential stories of Shakespeare and one of the greatest plays ever written. Hamlet is the archetype of doubt, the struggle between action and inaction; revenge and morality; truth and deception.

Enigmatic and mysterious, the young Danish prince's story is full of passions, intrigues, and betrayals... Chimeras, demons, and corrupt nobles plague Elsinore after the death of the King Hamlet. All of them are paths that the main character will have to travel in the theatre of madness towards a single destiny: revenge and death.

I directed Hamlet in the context of the 400 anniversary of Shakespeare death at the University of Navarra. I developed a color code that could help the university public to comprehend the complex storylines of the play. To this end, I dressed Claudio and all his allies with black and burgundy (a reference to the passion that drives the main antagonist of the play). Hamlet and his supporters, for their part, wore white and black, still mourning for the King’s death.

The only two characters that escaped from this color-coding were the only two women of the play: Gertrud and Ophelia. Indeed, Gertrud wore black and gold, since it is her greed that which drives her from virtue. On the other hand, I decided that Ophelia should be dressed all in white with a double intention: first, from a more obvious point of view, to emphasize her innocence and virtue. However, on a second dimension, this decision was also informed by Isak Dinesen’s Blank Page, for not everything might be as it seems.