Classic plays given a poetic touch

RUSSIA’S oldest national theater, the Alexandrinsky Theater, is going to stage two of the world’s most well-known plays in Shanghai in May — “Mother Courage and Her Children” by Bertolt Brecht and Shakespeare’s classic tragedy “Hamlet.”

“Mother Courage and Her Children” is director Theodoros Terzopoulos’s new adaptation of Brecht’s classic play. A chronicle of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) in Central Europe, it is one of the most powerful anti-war plays in history.

Terzopoulos said it is more important for him to deliver the spirit, not the letter of Brecht’s theater. He successfully combined poetics with his own artistic method.

The new stage version of “Hamlet,” created by director Valery Fokin, uses poetic and prose renditions of the Bard’s famous tragedy in its text. Playwright Vadim Levanov created an adaptation of the play that fits the realities of today.

The show focuses on the acute internal struggles of someone who is doomed to live in the atmosphere of hypocrisy and lies.

And behind the glossy facade there hides criminal ambitious aggressiveness of egoistic interests.

The two productions have enjoyed successful tours in Germany, Poland, Italy, Austria, Finland and Japan.

The Alexandrinsky Theater, founded in 1756, is considered a living storybook in regards to the history of Russian theatrical art.

Date: May 8-9, 7:30pm

Date: May 12-13, 7:30pm Tickets: 80-580 yuan

Tel: 3636-8807

Venue: Daning Theater

Address: 1222 Pingxingguan Rd