The Song of Beast (after Hamlet)

Theatre BreadHit and Samuel Baguette transport Hamlet to a slaughterhouse in South Korea, as competing capitalists vie for market control. What is at first an effective mutation of the original text—allowing the company to entwine gangster narratives with classic interpretations of mistaken identity—quickly descends into a farce.

The struggle for the throne and the protagonist's descent into madness is told as Hamlet’s father, chief executive of the slaughterhouse, is killed by Claudius. As he assumes control of the business and begins to literally wipe out any competition, Hamlet records the corrupt inner workings of the factory, threatening to expose its management. Still, nobody is prepared to believe Hamlet, denouncing his revelations as delusional hallucinations. The pursuit of holding power to account is what starts to drive Hamlet mad. In this, the audience is filmed and projected onto a large screen, as we become complicit in this corruption by our silent witness.

It’s unfortunate that the play’s focus on bloody violence—including scene after scene of skirmishes, rape and murder—fails to get under the skin of its characters. They are all grossly prototypical and the actors effectively shout their lines for the full 105 minutes. This almost verges on endurance theatre for audiences, as the performances are often so comically overblown that we are given no moment’s rest. It’s clear that this in itself is not some connected commentary to the observation that we are basically all animals at root; instead, it comes across as ultra-macho and bland.