Hamlet

First published on 4 Nov 2009. Updated on 5 Apr 2011.

Why see Hamlet in German? To see this particular German actor playing Hamlet, says Marius von Mayenburg, the prominent playwright who adapted it for him. "Lars Eidinger is the event," claims Mayenburg modestly. "The night is not special because of a clever concept but because of this actor."

Mayenburg and director Thomas Ostermeier, both pillars of Berlin's prestigious Schaubühne theatre, noticed years ago the man they wanted for the part, but the actor seemed too young. But eventually Ostermeier told Mayenburg: "Now I know how we can do Hamlet. He's not this intellectual beautiful mind surrounded by evil people, but he's this nasty annoying child."

The resulting ignoble Prince resembles nothing that Laurence Olivier could imagine, even in a LSD-spiked nightmare: he throws tantrums, talks with his mouth full, and wobbles through graveyard mud in a fat suit like Mike Myers' tragic shadow. If his Hamlet is feigning madness, he's doing an excellent imitation of the involuntary cursing of a Touretter.

Mayenburg gives Eidinger three stabs at the world's most famous soliloquy. His adaptation opens with the first eight lines of "To be or not to be." Why? "Everyone who is going to see Hamlet is expecting this monologue, so why take the stress out and start with it?" explains Mayenburg. But those lines and more are given again in Act II plus the full version in its usual place in Act III. Each time Eidinger shows a very different suicidal state of mind.

But Mayenburg's version is not merely a standard star vehicle for the Prince: it provides for some excellent ensemble acting. It condenses Shakespeare's sprawling cast to just six actors, using some unusual doublings. In one Freudian conflation, his mother Gertrude morphs back and forth with his girlfriend Ophelia by pulling off a wig and sunglasses. Hamlet also cross-undresses to play the Queen in the play-within-a-play, stripping off his fat suit and getting freaky in lingerie.

Mayenburg's text interpolates some very non-Shakespearean dialogue ("To London! Big Ben! Madame Tussaud's!") inspired by rehearsal improvisations. German audiences are accustomed to this kind of loose and fractured treatment of classics, says Mayenburg, pointing out that Sydney has already seen many such productions directed by Australians who work in Berlin, such as Benedict Andrews' War of the Roses and Barrie Kosky's Women of Troy.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation, but the need to translate isn't always an entirely bad thing, says Klaus Krischok, director of the Goethe Institut, which helped bring the production (with English surtitles) to the Sydney Festival. "You can see something that's familiar in a radical new interpretation," he says. "It's a very bewildering experience that separates the theatrical experience from the language experience. The familiar play, the familiar characters in a foreign language opens up new insight into both the play and the characters."

If Hamlet is a poster child for unhappy endings, this version is one of the darkest ever staged. Polonius is turned into an power-hungry bureaucrat devoid of all fun and love, and even the reliable sidekick Horatio can't be trusted. "The only person Hamlet can talk to openly is the audience," says Mayenburg. Speak, Hamlet, we are bound to hear.

Jason Catlett