REVIEW: Hamlet at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin

The ‘deconstruction’ of classical texts is a familiar spectacle in modern theatre, yet the tactic seldom rises beyond amusing irreverence. Thomas Ostermeier’s rightly acclaimed version of Hamlet, by contrast, takes a real relish in its destructive desires and — as a result — it thoroughly reinvigorates Shakespeare’s play in one of the highlights of the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Indeed, one of the things Ostermeier’s production discovers is that Hamlet is itself a play about destruction. The German director viscerally stresses the theme of decay and how the very rotting ‘matter’ of the world around us works its way into our minds and actions. Hence, on the stage’s extraordinary soil-covered set we find characters drawn repeatedly to the dark earth, falling face-first into it, kicking it, throwing it. They even ingest it, their tongues left blackened and their minds made unhinged by the taste of death and putrefaction.