The King of Denmark is dead, poisoned by his brother Claudius, who then married his widow Gertrude and usurped the throne. Grief-stricken, Hamlet is soon visited by his father’s ghost. The ghost reveals his murder and demands revenge. But Hamlet seeks something more than revenge: he wants to know the truth.

Sandra Hüller’s Hamlet is neither mad, cynical nor detached. He is lucid. He moves with wide-open eyes towards the abyss, appalled by the moral collapse of the world around him. Torn between the urge to flee and the will to stand firm, he’s an ordinary person driven by a quest for justice.

One of the gravediggers repeats the phrase “he is alone” like a haunting refrain throughout the play. And it is this absolute solitude that guides Johan Simons’ staging. Hamlet no longer believes in anything or anyone. Around him, his family is consumed by hypocrisy, cynicism and debauchery. They dance like the damned on the brink of the abyss.

‘To be or not to be’ is no longer a question, it is a condition – one of doubt and loneliness in an unravelling world. Johannes Schütz’s set is an arena, “a white tomb for all”, where a luminous sphere and a large suspended metal wall represent this imbalance. As the actors cross from the stage into the hall, sit in the front row, and watch themselves act, we all become Hamlet, grappling with the same doubts.