Kirjahaku

‘I’m having absolutely nothing to do with the theatre or the human race. They can all go to hell.’ – Anton ChekhovDuring the turmoil of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Maria Chekhov, Anton’s sister, placed many of her late brother’s manuscripts and papers in a safety deposit box in Moscow.In 1921 Soviet scholars opened the box, and discovered a play. The title page was missing. The play they found has too many characters, too many themes, too much action. All in all, it’s generally dismissed as unstageable. Like life.A new play by Dead Centre, creators of the OBIE / Fringe First winning LIPPY.

Dead Centre’s new solo work for an eleven -year-old boy is devoted to Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, who died in 1596, only eleven himself.A single letter separates Hamnet from the philosophical heights of Hamlet. Unlike the Prince, he cannot ask ‘to be or not to be’. Condemned not to be, he now seeks to understand the world from which he has been wrested. Hamnet is too young to understand Shakespeare. We are too old to understand Hamnet. Two generations, asking each other what they want to pass on and receive.