Georgi Niagolov a a Department of English and American Studies, Sofia University, Bulgaria Published online: 16 Jul 2013.

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1 This article was downloaded by: [Georgi Niagolov] On: 16 July 2013, At: 14:43 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Shakespeare Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: Review of Hamlet or Three Boys and One Girl (adapted and directed by Nikolay Georgiev Student Theatre-Laboratory) at the Theatre Hall of Sofia University, Bulgaria, 12 March 2013 Georgi Niagolov a a Department of English and American Studies, Sofia University, Bulgaria Published online: 16 Jul To cite this article: Shakespeare (2013): Review of Hamlet or Three Boys and One Girl (adapted and directed by Nikolay Georgiev Student Theatre-Laboratory) at the Theatre Hall of Sofia University, Bulgaria, 12 March 2013, Shakespeare, DOI: / To link to this article: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content ) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &

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3 Shakespeare, Review of Hamlet or Three Boys and One Girl (adapted and directed by Nikolay Georgiev Student Theatre-Laboratory) at the Theatre Hall of Sofia University, Bulgaria, 12 March 2013 Georgi Niagolov* Department of English and American Studies, Sofia University, Bulgaria Hamlet is arguably the most popular of Shakespeare s works in Bulgaria. The text has been almost unremittingly present in the school curriculum ever since 1884 and has steadily grown in momentum throughout the twentieth century, despite the fact that after the 1950s the communist regime embraced Hamlet as a forerunner of socialism who sacrificed himself in the struggle against the evils of the (proto-) capitalist world. Against this background, Nikolay Georgiev s experimental adaptation Hamlet or Three Boys and One Girl is a rather outstanding dramatic project. It blends three familiar approaches into a unique formula for continuous collaborative exploration of Shakespeare s play within the socio-political context of performance. First, in line with the overarching artistic concept of the Student Theatre-Laboratory, it deploys Jerzy Grotowski s ideas of stripping down histrionic pretence to lay bare the actors genuine intimacy and opening theatrical space, both material and mental, to involve the audience (1525). Second, it regards Shakespeare and his characters as our contemporaries and uses Jan Kott s interpretation of Hamlet as the tragic story of three boys and one girl (Hamlet, Laertes, Fortinbras and Ophelia) who are forced to act against their nature being locked in an intolerable situation (5775). Third, it echoes Heiner Mueller s Hamletmachine in order to re-enact Mueller s own desire to free the text from the authorial and scholastic dictates of the past by crossing it with topical voices. The result is a highly improvisational production that toys with Shakespeare s text in all possible ways and absorbs promptly the socio-political energies of the time. A video clip of the production is available on the Global Shakespeares open-access archive. Hamlet or Three Boys and One Girl has been performed regularly at the Sofia University Theatre Hall since 2001 by different casts of student actors, to different audiences, in different circumstances, and hence to different effect. This review focuses on its most recent version, which took place at a very peculiar moment of Bulgarian history 22 days after the government stepped down under the pressure of nationwide protests, which went on to demand the replacement of current political and economic structures allowing privileged elites to seize control of community * gnjagolov@uni-sofia.bg # 2013 Georgi Niagolov

4 2 G. Niagolov resources and embezzle them, with a new social and political order grounded in transparency, integrity and participatory democracy (Hristova). The show opened with a relaxed rehearsal-like atmosphere the whole cast of student actors entered the stage in their casual clothes and elected four among them to take the parts of Hamlet, Laertes, Fortinbras and Ophelia. It was unimportant who would play the three boys and the girl, they suggested, the Hamlet-gene is so fundamental that it can be found in every human being. The costumes were also unimportant. The crucial thing was to give Hamlet a modern face. Suddenly, it became clear that there was an extra character onstage. She asserted herself into the centre of the action, dominating and commanding the others in an imperious and slightly cynical tone it was Death. Just then, everyone dropped dead and the play began backwards, but not counter-chronologically. The familiar narrative was deconstructed into symbolic vignettes, fragmented soliloquies and single cues. Shakespeare s text was at the heart of those fragments, yet it was interspersed with echoes from Mueller s Hamletmachine (HAMLET:...the ruins of Europe in back of me ) and other Shakespeare plays, as well as the spontaneous comments of the actors and the audience. The language of the performance was Bulgarian. The production used Geo Milev s 1919 translation of Hamlet, which to this day remains the most familiar Bulgarian version of Shakespeare s text. The second major medium of expression was physical theatre. Petya Yosifova s resourceful choreography was designed so as to extract as much semiosis as possible from the actors moving bodies. The fact that Death often behaved as the director of the show and everybody continuously acted out of character created an ever-present metadramatic effect. The actors also used every opportunity to question and subvert the ideas expressed in the play ( LAERTES [to Hamlet]: Did not your father... gamble with Danish lands in a criminal wager merely to prove his personal superiority? Was this an act of a good king? ). The apparent purpose was to remove all ideological structures and open up Shakespeare s drama for a new reading in the here and now. At the same time, the spectators were challenged to leave their passive role and engage in the action ( DEATH [to a random member of the audience]: Horatio, conspirator of my thoughts...would you like me to open my legs for you...don t worry it s conceptual? ). What had been conceptual for over a decade has now become political too. Since its restoration in 2000 the Sofia University Theatre-Laboratory has striven to produce on the stage something that, in my opinion, is best described as opensource theatre it is free of charge, provides free access to content and the mechanism of its production dismantles the classics to crack the code imposed on them by prescribed interpretations, opens their cruces for contemporary discussion and contextualization, requires from the actors a genuine personal reaction and invites the audience to contribute, modify and share the performance. While this approach has always been in line with Shakespeare s idea of theatre as a quick forge and working house of thought, on 13 March 2013 in Sofia it also held the mirror up to [...] the very age and body of the time. Just like Georgiev s two earlier versions of Hamlet or Two Boys and One Girl, the first one in 1968, a year of mass protests on a global scale, and the second in 1992, the year of the overthrow of the first democratically elected government in post-communist Bulgaria, the 2013 production resonated with the thousands of voices protesting in the streets and, in their own different ways, demanding what can be generally construed as

5 Shakespeare 3 open-source governance (Rushkoff; Steele). The 99 percent can s conversation with Shakespeare seemed to imply, only if they stop taking prescribed socio-political structures for granted and transcend the traditional compartmentalization between actors and audience in the theatre of life. References Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre. Trans. T. K. Wiewiorowski. New York: Simon and Shuster, Hristova, Zornitsa. Letter from Bulgaria: What s Taking Us to the Streets?. Occupy Movement Website. 25 Mar Kott, Jan. Shakespeare Our Contemporary. Trans. Boleslaw Taborski. London: W.W. Norton, Rushkoff, Douglas. Open Source Democracy: How Online Communication is Changing Offline Politics. London: Demos, Steele, Robert David. Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency Truth, and Trust. Berkley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2012.