Hamlet IV

photo: Wojciech Plewinski

The world represented in the drama is clearly divided into two separate domains, which unite and merge only rarely. The stage (only partly visible, thus of less concern to us) is the "external" world, the court of Elsinore, but also the theatre space where the actors perform; the dressing room (the main place of action) is the "internal" world, Hamlet's private space, as well as a place where, coming off "the stage", he stops playing and starts being himself (...)

The drama begins: Teresa Budzisz-Krzy┐anowska, deep in thought, enters the dressing room with a tired walk, dressed in her private (read: women's) clothes. She walks behind a screen and starts changing into Hamlet's costume. She doesn't behave like an actor preparing for a routine job - her whole attitude indicates someone getting ready for a difficult, painful, unrewarding task, perhaps a final struggle. As she is nears the end of her preparations, the lights on the big stage come on and actors' voices are heard: the Hamlet performance has started with the opening scene, before the prince of Denmark enters the action. But when that moment finally arrives, he/she does so with such inner reluctance, that the "action" must in a way follow him and move, at least partly, back to the dressing room.