German premiere of Princess Hamlet at Schauspiel Leipzig

A German production of E.L. Karhu’s Princess Hamlet (Prinsessa Hamlet) will mark the opening on 2 December 2017 of Schauspiel Leipzig’s new stage dedicated to contemporary drama. The production, based on a translation by Stefan Moster, also marks the play’s first outing in Germany.

“The play refers to Shakespeare’s big topics of truth, love, betrayal and power but is at the same time a completely independent work of its own – daring and fresh and powerful. Central for me stands the topic of lunacy that leads to total exhaustion and the question of what happens to the individual that refuses to function within the logic that society has to offer,” Schauspiel Leipzig’s dramaturge Katja Herlemann says of the play.

The production in Leipzig will be directed by Lucia Bihler, who has worked in a number of theatres across Germany and Austria. She is also the founder member of the Berlin-based gold&heib ensemble. Bihler’s past works include Kafka, Shakespeare and Heiner Müller. The madness inherent in Müller’s Hamletmachine is cited in the introduction to Princess Hamlet on the Schauspiel Leipzig website.

“My goal is to curate more new European plays and Emmy’s play marks the start of this programming. I am confident that our young audience will appreciate the boldness of the play and the strong visual language,” Herlemann adds.

Princess Hamlet has also been translated into English by Kristian London and into Czech by Otto Kauppinen for the Specific festival in Brno in the Czech Republic. Both the Czech translation and the German translation marking the launch of the new Diskothek stage in Leipzig have received grant funding from Theatre Info Finland (TINFO).

Princess Hamlet first premiered in Finland at Helsinki’s Q-teatteri in February 2017. E.L. Karhu is represented by Agency North. An adult puppet theatre production based on Princess Hamlet by Aura of Puppets and Turku City Theatre is due to open in October.

We previously wrote about E.L. Karhu in the spring edition of our German newsletter.

(The article by TINFO 10 Oct 2017)