As musical group Radiohead and the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) launch an innovative reimagining of Hamlet, a visit to the play's setting in Denmark gives the tragedy new meaning.
If you climb up to the platform in front of Kronborg Castle in Helsingor, Denmark, to look out over Sweden, you can feel the cold wind blowing from the shore of the Oresund Strait. At one end of the platform next to the imposing cannons facing the strait is a red guard post with pillars. But many tourists don't come here for the view: they're looking for ghosts.
This windy place is the exact location of the opening scene of Hamlet,
Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. Here two guards,
Francisco and
Bernardo, switch posts in the middle of the night and talk about the ghost of Hamlet's father. The castle, a grand Renaissance hulk built in 1574 with fabulous turrets, a moat and a huge banqueting hall, is where the rest of the tragedy unfolds.
In 2025, the Royal Shakespeare Company will present no less than three versions of the story:
- a radical adaptation using Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief" album as the score (from April 27);
- "Fat Ham," a comic tragedy that takes Hamlet's story to the Deep South (from August 15);
- a traditional version directed by Rupert Gould with Luke Tallon in the title role (from February 8). The RSC last staged Hamlet in 2016.
"There's something in the air right now that says the play has resonance," says Tamara Harvey, artistic director of the RSC, noting that all three producers have approached the RSC about staging their plays this year.
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"A play that touches on themes of generational differences and shifting world order, not to mention that 'something is rotten in Denmark' - the idea that the foundations of society no longer feel secure - is hard not to find appealing," Harvey adds.
Castle tour
Today in Helsingor, the modern name of Shakespeare's town of Elsinore, nothing looks dilapidated. The sky is blue and the sun glistens on the golden flag flying atop one of the towers.
Join castle manager Louise Alder Steffensen on a tour to uncover Kronborg's connections to "Hamlet."
According to Steffensen, there is no evidence that Shakespeare ever visited Kronborg - but he certainly knew it well, such as how, as you walk down the stone corridors, you can hear the echo of footfalls, and in the grand ballroom, the floor is covered with wooden planks.
"We have some information that Shakespeare's colleagues visited the castle," she says. "We know that actors Thomas Pope, George Bryan and William Kemp spent a season here performing plays for the Danish king. When they returned to England, they formed the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a Shakespeare troupe."
They may have brought with them stories of what went on within the castle walls. The play mentions a characteristic celebration: a toast accompanied by drum beats, trumpet and cannon sounds - and this comes from the tradition followed in the castle at the time.
A dimly lit room next to the ballroom displays tapestries from the era, with gilded threads depicting mythologized kings. Long curtains hang around the queen's bedroom and throughout the castle, softening the sandstone walls, muffling sounds and making the room a little warmer, as well as providing opportunities for dramatic intrigue.
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Visiting the castle is like being immersed in a play, walking through the large gallery where the silk dresses of the maid of honor rustled and entering the beautifully preserved church. It is as if the play itself has come to life, and the castle plays with this theatricality.
In the summer, special tours invite guests to participate in Hamlet-inspired murder quests, and in the fall, there are
Halloween tours in the spooky cellars. So far, no one has seen the ghost of Hamlet's father, but other ghostly apparitions have occurred, according to Steffensen and other castle guides.
The king's men and the actors of the play
As Steffensen informs visitors of the castle's history, new information emerges about its significance to Shakespeare. James I married the teenage Danish princess Anne in 1589. When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603 and King James ascended the throne, England had a Danish queen.
"The action of the first quarto, written at the very beginning of 1603, takes place in Denmark," says Steffensen. "But there are no specific locations in it. After Anne becomes queen of England, we see references to the castle itself."
King James became a patron of the Shakespearean troupe, and in 1603 its name was changed from The Lord Chamberlain's Men to The King's Men. Queen Anne's Castle in Denmark became an important seat of the royal family and so was given a major role in the play.
At the top of the cannon tower, a large flat room in the corner of the castle, you have a view of the moat, the yellow barracks around it and the city beyond. It is in one of these barracks buildings, a former infirmary that is now the headquarters of the town's Shakespeare Festival, that you can learn more about the legacy of Hamlet in Helsingor.
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Lars Romann Engel, CEO and artistic director of HamletScenen, the castle's professional theater organization, often shows tourists the actors who have played Hamlet over the decades in the hallway-gallery of this building.
Black-and-white shots of Jude Law, Kenneth Branagh, Sir John Gielgud, Derek Jacobi, David Tennant, Richard B'rton and Christopher Plummer cover the walls and stairwell, representing a who's who in "Hamlet."
Shakespeare Festival
Hamlet played a role in the city's transformation into a cultural center after the decline of the shipbuilding industry in the 1980s, when the municipality figured out how to create a production theater in the UNESCO-listed castle.
Engel founded the town's Shakespeare Festival, which takes place at the castle every August and shows adaptations of Hamlet in different guises. Previous performances have included spaghetti-style Western versions, dark German versions by the experimental theater Schabrne, and a popular production starring Jude Law.
In addition to Hamlet, the festival usually features lighter Shakespearean works, often with music and other events. Both plays are staged in the open air against the backdrop of the castle; tickets are sold well in advance, and the audience usually comes with a picnic.
As a theater director, Engel staged a very successful adaptation of "Hamlet" in 2008 in a castle courtyard with crumbling walls and crumbling masonry - starring the young Klas Bang as Rosencrantz - and after a mutual decision with the local municipality founded the festival. For the past 17 years, he has been leading and directing the event.
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"When you see 'Hamlet' here, you realize you're falling into myth," Engel says. "Now you're in the epicenter of it all. It's a special thing: this is where it was written."
Engel takes tourists through the other buildings of the barracks and ends the tour at the Lapidarium, the castle's sculpture vault, where a life-size sculpture of Shakespeare stands next to Holger Danske, a sleeping Viking warrior.
Holger Danske is one of the significant figures for the castle: according to legend, when Denmark needs him, he will wake up and come to the rescue.
A reproduction of this original model lurks in the darkness of the castle cellars. Engel is organizing this year's festival, which runs from August 6 to 24 and features Twelfth Night and Hamlet performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, who take a classic Elizabethan approach to these works and perform with an all-male cast.
"This year we took a more classical approach," Engel says. "Because there's a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. When we're a little scared, we don't like things upside down, and people want things to be as they know them."
Eternal Shakespeare
As evidence that the play can be reimagined endlessly, Engel also plans to stage a one-person Eddie Izzard production of Hamlet this year. It's often said that every minute of every day, there's a performance of "Hamlet" going on somewhere in the world. Shakespeare's most popular play, written during his lifetime, has taken on a life of its own 425 years later that has surpassed all expectations.
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"This is one of the greatest works in the English language, touching on the very nature of human existence," says Harvey. "A play that raises fundamental themes with such complexity will always have different meanings for different people."
A visit to Kronborg Castle, as the "setting" of the play in real life, certainly brings it to life. As visitors leave the castle, cross the bridge over the moat, past the guardhouse to the grassy fortifications around the castle, the sounds of marching feet echo in the sound system. They are back in Shakespeare's world, at the end of the play Hamlet, joining the march with which the prince's body is carried away.