Hamlet: A Monologue

About The Film

This film documents Robert Wilson's production of Hamlet: A Monologue, shot during the piece's presentation at the Teatr Narodowy Warsaw in 1997. The production was adapted from Shakespeare by Wilson and Wolfgang Wiens, and was performed by Wilson himself, who alone embodied every character in the play.

Wilson's conception radically restructures Shakespeare's text by beginning seconds before Hamlet's death and unfolding the entire drama as a kind of flashback — a dream memory playing out in Hamlet's mind in his final moments. In Wilson's words: "I did it as a monologue, a kind of dream memory of the entire play. I restructured the text, beginning seconds before Hamlet dies. So the work is seen as a flashback, with Hamlet speaking the text of Ophelia, Gertrude and all the other characters. The play really takes place in Hamlet's mind. It begins with his last speech and ends with his last speech."

The production is a concentrated demonstration of Wilson's approach to classical text — the emphasis on image, on the physical presence and movement of the performer, and on the gap between what is said and what is seen. By collapsing all of Hamlet's world into a single figure and a single consciousness, Wilson makes the play's meditation on memory, mortality, and interiority radically literal. The film was shot over the 1997-2000 period of the production's performance life.