James Tadd Adcox
 
(Abandoned; Doppelganger; Madness, II)

Version of Hamlet performed in a large and long-abandoned warehouse. Hamlet wanders alone, attempting to find the actor who plays Horatio so that he may speak his first lines. It is possible the other characters are in the warehouse as well, searching, like Hamlet, for the actors with whom they may begin their scene. It is equally possible that no one else is in the warehouse. Hamlet’s footsteps resound throughout the empty rooms.



 

Version of Hamlet in which Laertes and Hamlet are each the double of the other, played by nearly identical actors, wearing nearly identical costumes. The actors themselves seem unsure who is supposed to be whom: they mix up each other’s lines, each reaches for the other’s sword, a kiss on Ophelia’s check is equally charged with distain and incest. Dying, each stabbed by the other, it is impossible to say whether Hamlet has murdered Laertes or Laertes Hamlet.
Alternatively, version in which Ophelia and Hamlet are nearly indistinguishable. We begin to suspect after a time that it is Hamlet, too sensitive to carry out the ghost’s commands, who lies drowned by suicide in act three, while Ophelia in her mourning clothes continues the work of revenge.



 

Version of Hamlet as monologue, in which Hamlet speaks the lines of each of the other characters, as if he already knows what they are going to say and is mocking them for it. After several minutes it becomes clear that the others onstage are not characters, but onlookers, concerned.

from the journal AFTERNOON VISITOR
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These pieces are from a longer series of instructions for producing variations on the play Hamlet. Each variation may be applied singly or in combination to any given performance of Hamlet. Once a variation or set of variations has been chosen the corresponding instructions should be followed strictly, regardless of whether a variation may appear impossible for legal, moral, or pragmatic reasons.
 
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