To be and not to be... at once: Daniel Špinar, Czech director extraordinaire, enters the European stage

A review of a very unusual and highly topical Hamlet, as seen at the Pilsen Theatre Festival, and directed by Daniel Špinar, the young director of the National Theatre in Prague. In the year of the 50th anniversary of Jan Kott’s influential book Shakespeare Our Contemporary, it’s remarkable to see how this Hamlet reflects the way Kott read the play and the main character – as a character who is not defined by the situation imposed on him, at any rate not beyond doubt, and who “accepts it but at the same time revolts against it” – and then how he goes even a step further.