The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane - NZIAF

'Absorbing, sometimes mind-blowing… staging the audition process is ingenious' - Irish Theatre Magazine

Who is going to be, or not to be, Hamlet? That is the question you are faced with during this purgatorial presentation of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy

Highly innovative, witty and engaging, this is an irreverent riff on Hamlet that does not so much update or deconstruct the play as explode it.

The first half of the production is staged as an audition where our would-be Hamlets variously interpret the lead, attempting to impress the director and the audience with their unique takes on the troubled prince. But can anyone escape playing the ‘Great’ Dane? Aren’t we all the main part?

In the second half the stage is a hall of mirrors and the play-within-a-play, enacted by a troupe of schoolboy actors, is Hamlet itself.

Visually breathtaking, The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane was the winner of Best Production and Best Set Design at the 2010 Irish Times Theatre Awards and was unanimously awarded the Critics Choice as Best Show in the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival 2010.

Interactive and audacious, this will be enjoyed by both Shakespeare aficionados and novices alike.

The TV3 Season of The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane.

Sponsored by TV3.

With support from Arts Council Ireland and Culture Ireland.

Presented by arrangement with Arts Project Australia.