It’s a funny thing to make a promise to yourself. After our first production of HAMLET in 2010, I promised that if we made it to ten seasons I would do it again. It was about 2 years ago that I realized it was actually going to happen, and began to ponder how my relationship to this play had changed over time. When I was directing, and playing, HAMLET for the first time, I came at it with an edge of fire, unleashing a Hamlet in a gritty world who was vengeful and as a reviewer put it, “unhinged.” But something has changed, as I’ve gotten older I begin to recognize the melancholy and loneliness Hamlet feels in stilted dreams, surrounded by public scrutiny and an unclear future. Hamlet, to me, is become a man who waits for the perfect moment to act, but wonders if that moment has passed him by. His world has become ornate, royal, and as he says, “a prison,” but in reality a prison fashioned by his own mind and the public eye. This is a magical text. I’ve now journeyed the path twice, I could do it another hundred and still never be satisfied. Thank you for 10 seasons, 2 Hamlets, and more to come. - Niclas Olson
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