It’s because 9 out of 10 times we choose the cinema over theatre.
It’s because we keep on hoping for that tenth time.
It’s because we love Shakespeare. It’s because we can’t stand Shakespeare.
It’s because father said: hurry up slowly.
It’s because we dream of something at the end.
It’s out of sheer curiosity, whether it could be done.
It’s because we suddenly became convinced that it just might.
It’s because we enjoy the surface.
It’s because of the combination of plenty and enthusiasm.
It’s as theatre as it gets.
It’s consumable.
It’s light. Fewer calories for an ever better taste.

In order to enjoy theatre, shouldn’t we forget it? Forget that we’re inside a theatre, forget how it works? How about if we just forgot the whole idea of a production and simply focused on how to advertise it? If Instead of the play the audience saw the creation of a play’s trailer? What would remain? What would the new scale of possibilities be?


Vvoitek Ziemilski’s “Hamlet Light” was one of the three awarded proposals at the three awarded proposals at the Young Artists project that took place in 2006, with the sponsorship of several national organizations. The Project’s purpose was to recognize the situation of the young national artists allowing the 3 awarded projects to be produced and presented before live audiences. After being presented in Espaço do Tempo, in Montemor-o-Novo, O CENTA, in Vila Velha de Rodão, and in CAPA, in Faro, Hamlet Light finally has his absolute première in Teatro das Figuras. The Teatro Municipal de Faro apart from being one of the organizations involved in the Project Young Artists has also integrated the Critical Observatory responsible for the selection of the 3 awarded projects.

This nothing's more than matter.


Este nada é mais que substância.


- Laertes, 4.5

The Exhibition

Rehearsal Tubes, an exhibition by Verónica Conte, is a staging of the events that happened during Hamlet Light sets preparation and that weren’t shown before the audiences. Embracing the “light” spirit of the play, the staging of two expositive moments will be displayed in Mercado Municipal.

Moment 1
Ophelia: My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longed long to re-deliver. I pray you, now receive them.
Hamlet: No, not I! I never gave you aught.

Moment 2
King: Laertes, was your father dear to you?

These moments allow us into a short voyage searching, not so much the essence of the scenes but rather another kind of perspective, a new space, a different experience. Tensions appear between the scale of the objects and their power, between their apparent innocence and the violence of the universe that brought them about.

Elizabethan Play

There is a round building three stories high, in which are kept about a hundred large English dogs, with separate wooden kennels for each of them. These dogs were made to fight singly with three bears, the second bear being larger than the first and the third larger than the second. After this a horse was brought in and chased by the dogs, and at last a bull, who defended himself bravely. The next was that a number of men and women came forward from a separate compartment, dancing, conversing and fighting with each other: also a man who threw some white bread among the crowd, that scrambled for it. Right over the middle of the place a rose was fixed, this rose being set on fire by a rocket: suddenly lots of apples and pears fell out of it down upon the people standing below. Whilst the people were scrambling for the apples, some rockets were made to fall down upon them out of the rose, which caused a great fright but amused the spectators. After this, rockets and other fireworks came flying out of all corners, and that was the end of the play.

- account of a Southwark performance in 1584, as cited by Elizabethan Stage, by E.K.Chambers.