Berlin Ensemble | “Hamlet”: With Daddy in the Club

Today again listless at the party: Sebastian Zimmler is playing Hamlet in Ersan Mondtag's production. Photo: Lukas Städler Is the man actually crazy? Or is it all just an act? The Shakespeare exegetes argue brilliantly about the state of mind of Prince Hamlet. And anyone who wants to bring the play of plays to the stage needs at least a somewhat convincing answer to this question.

Director Ersan Mondtag, who premiered "Hamlet" at the Berliner Ensemble on Thursday, is at least clear in this respect: Hamlet, at home in club culture, apparently suffers from a veritable drug psychosis.

Everything else remains somewhat confusing in this three and a half hour evening at the theater. And yet the title hero's trip is just a tedious claim. Intoxication and excess are not transmitted to the audience. You have to endure this production like a failed party.

Mondtag, who is also responsible for the stage design for this work, created a landscape of ruins. Various rooms are revealed on the revolving stage. But the game in it has no structure. Here the center of the new power in Denmark exists - which is coded "State D" on Schiffbauerdamm - next to the techno club where Hamlet spends his long nights.

The theater maker Wilke Weermann adapted the Shakespeare text. He follows the course of action and the character constellation of the Elizabethan quite strictly, but audibly gives the text his own touch. Some of the language games seem as forced as the entire production. Not exactly inconspicuously, he repeatedly highlights references to the present. “Yes, we are experiencing a turning point,” it says right at the beginning. And at the latest everyone will have understood that the present time should be explained here.

Hamlet, Weermann explains in a conversation printed in the program, longs for a past order. He rejected the progressiveness of the new government, which was represented by his mother Gertrud and his uncle Claudius, who had become his stepfather. This makes him a reactionary. This is not an obvious, but still a very original reading of the drama. It is unfortunate that almost nothing of this is depicted in the production or in the text version.

To be, not to be. Let it be better? Photo: Lukas Städler But if not the reactionary naysayer, as announced, what type is Mondtag's Hamlet? Sebastian Zimmler plays a somewhat sculptural figure in this system. The student from Wittenberg is a not-so-young clubber anymore. Coke and sexual debauchery draw him to a club called "Enter."

The techno beats thump at a more subtle volume, while the audience can follow the goings-on in the live video. But none of the empty hedonism resonates with the audience. Ersan Mondtag is a director who creates atmospheres in his productions. Therein lies his strength. But on this evening the club clichés are left indifferent.

When Hamlet, of all people, is haunted by the ghost of his murdered father - who goes by the name Daddy - after he has just gotten it, the involuntary comedy finds its way onto the stage. It's like a horror movie without the scares, a pretty boring and long-winded affair.

What story is being sold to the audience here? You don't want to believe Hamlet's inner struggle. A real negotiation of political conflicts cannot be recognized even with great goodwill. The Danish prince does not despair of the circumstances; he barely bothers to understand her. Long-term puberty is not suitable for a national scandal.

Hamlet's monologue "To be or not to be", probably the most famous in dramatic literature, is recited with such a lack of ideas that one has to wonder. The Berliner Ensemble employs the most interesting actors and actresses in the capital. This is hardly noticeable when a production is stuck in the conception phase and ultimately remains lifeless.

The idea of ​​setting up Hamlet and Ophelia as a gay couple also has no consequences that evening. Pierre Emö plays the latter in a glittering dress. But the psychology of this enigmatic figure remains obscure, from his first falling in love to his suicide. The impression is of an elaborate production with a gigantic set and dazzling costumes, which is nevertheless unfinished.

In the second part of the evening the club visits come to an end. A lack of scenic ideas is rampant. The text is diligently spoken down until there has been enough death for a “Hamlet”. The rest is – suffering.

With us, no one has to pay to be informed. Sounds like a bad business model? It is too. But independent journalism and participation for everyone are more important to us than profit. Journalism still costs money: research, printing and all the people who do it. That's why we depend on you. We need 300,000 euros by the end of the year.

Donate once or regularly, every amount counts. So that nd remains.