Hamlet. Audio Play

A performance by the State Academic Theatre named after Vakhtangov
Staging by B. Zakhava and M. Astangov
Recording from 1959

The action of William Shakespeare’s best-known tragedy takes place in Elsinore shortly after the death of the Danish king. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, finds it hard to bear the loss of his father and his mother Queen Gertrude’s sudden remarriage to Claudius. In the midst of his grief, a stern ghost of his father appears in armor and reveals the terrible truth: the king did not die a natural death—he was poisoned by his own brother, Claudius, who has now become both the Queen’s husband and the new ruler of Denmark. The Ghost demands revenge and disappears.

Shaken, Hamlet—disillusioned with people and love—vows to take revenge, but postpones carrying it out, tormented by doubts and reflections on the meaning of duty and justice. He feels alienated from the role of the instrument of punishment: he senses that judgment is the prerogative of God, not of man, and at the same time reproaches himself for his indecision. Unable to endure the evil that reigns around him, and not knowing how to confront it, Hamlet—hiding his inner turmoil—begins to pretend to be mad…