Presentation of the museum-theatre project Russian Hamlet: the characters and the cast

The idea of the project was to represent the phenomenon of the Petersburg culture in the context of the world art and to visualize the dialogue of two epochs in the history of theatre - the Northern-European Renaissance and the Petersburg Theatre of the 20th century. There are more than 70 translations of "Hamlet" into Russian. Russian poets, composers, theatre directors, actors appealed to this play of William Shakespeare trying to comprehend phenomena of Russian life and thought that Hamlet was probably the most "Russian character of the English playright. The foyer of the Hermitage Theatre housed an exhibition fantasy "The Wreath of Ophelia" featuring authentic articles of the historical epoch of the tragedy from the Hermitage collection.Of special interest for the public were theatrical costumes, accessoires, photographs from the collection of the State Museum of Theatre and Music Art that helped imagine the stage history of "Hamlet" in Saint Petersburg retrospectively. The stage of the Hermitage Theatre became the exhibition area for the "animated" images of Hamlet created on the stages of Saint Petersburg in the course of 200 years . This unusual theatrical performance called "Around Hamlet" included the most well-known scenes of the tragedy "The mouse-trap", "To be or not to be" and others in translations of different poets (from Sumarokov to Pasternak) thus reflecting different historical epochs.. The actors of Saint Petersburg starring in these scenes tried to revive different styles of stage esthetics and acting. Classical "Hamlet" of Alexandrinsky Theatre with Vasiliy Karatygin as Hamlet, furious Hamlet of Mamont Dalsky, Hamlet-philosopher of Innokentiy Smoktunovsky - all these were represented on the stage of the Hermitage Theatre.

The actors of the drama theatres of Saint Petersburg took part in the performance. The project was sponsored by the Cosulate-general of Denmark, Council of Ministers of the Northern Countries in Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg branch of the International Moscow Bank, Joint Stock Shipbuilding Company "The Northern Shipyards", BalticTravel Company, Saint Petersburg English Club, PLC "ESP", Lucy and John Bewkenen (Portland, the USA).

Presentation of the museum-theatre project

A scene of the performance