To Be A Clown

When Hamlet clowns around brandishing a bright red nose and hurls Shakespeare’s famous question,“To be or not to be,” at the audience,the stage is set for a meeting of existentialism and party fun. Rajat Kapoor’s Hamlet:The Clown Prince,which will be staged in Delhi as part of the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards,approaches the tragic drama as a play in which a company of clowns tries to present Hamlet.

“In the process,English mixes with gibberish as the clowns balance Shakespeare’s lines with their own tales and personal stories. There are classical references and modern takes,” says Atul Kumar,who has been nominated for the Best Actor Prize for his role as the prince of Denmark. The play stresses on interaction with audience and begins by shaking them up by asking to improvise on the line “To be or not to be”. “Some of the gems we’ve had till now are to diet or not to diet,to go or not to go,to sleep or not to sleep,to laugh or not to laugh. We use a banal way to reach the heart of an existential topic,” he says,adding that every incident,from Hamlet’s scene with his mother in her bedroom to the ghost appearances,has been presented through clowning. The group had previously explored clowning through C For Clown.

The play will be staged at 7.30 pm at Kamani Auditorium today.