Hamlet Huh?

When I was writing about the University of Rochester production of Hamlet (see 10/14/13 post), I came across a reference to The Hamletmachine in the playbill.  I figured that it was worth a look, so I took to the Internet.

First, I visited the Wikipedia page for the play (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamletmachine).  It was not terribly helpful.  At least it gave an introductory description.  The play, by Heiner Mueller, is a reading of Hamlet applied to some modern situation, perhaps Communism and Soviet-bloc Europe, perhaps feminism.  Interpretations vary.

At the bottom of the entry is a copy of the text of the play (http://members.efn.org/~dredmond/Hamletmachine.PDF).  As it is only nine pages long, it was easy to print a hard copy for reading and adding to my Hamlet file. Reading it led to even more confusion, though.

"What is this?"  The play is a quick read, considering its length, but it is not a coherent read.  I read it several times, and I am still not entirely clear what is going on.  So back to the Internet I went.

Within the realm of YouTube I found a "synopsis" of the play, which I have posted below.  This clarified things a bit, although the overly informal nature of the clip distracted from its stated purpose.  Other YouTube clips of the play's performance--some mislabeled, some in foreign languages--shed no light on the issue.

One of the beauties of Hamlet is its adaptability.  The play can be molded into whatever context the director wishes, generally with good results.  The caveat, though, is that it can be changed beyond recognition.  That is the case here.  Aside from the use of character names, the relation between Hamlet and Hamletmachine is unclear to this blogger.  Perhaps a staged production will come to the area.  Until then, though, this version of Hamlet will not pique my curiosity much further.