Three Hamlet ballets from World War II to the Ukrainian crisis

Abstract

Breaking with a tradition of action-filled ballets with a heroic protagonist, a number of 20th- and 21st-century choreographies of Hamlet have probed the psychological and political themes of William Shakespeare’s tragedy. Inspired by theatre and film productions, choreographers have also used the medium’s visual language to comment on Shakespeare’s text and open up its interpretive potentialities. This article analyses three adaptations: Robert Helpmann’s 1942 version for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, Kenneth MacMillan’s 1988 Sea of Troubles for six former Royal Ballet dancers, and Radu Poklitaru and Declan Donnellan’s iconoclastic 2015 Hamlet for Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet.