“For me, the super-comic ‘Very Hamlet’ is a bit funny yet somewhat heavy, aesthetically coherent, and darkly grotesque. Go and see it!”

“An intelligent meta-narrative about Shakespeare’s most famous hero and a subversive lecture on the history of Hamlet adaptations intertwine in this production with a personal, intimate reflection on death. Although it is constantly obscured by sharp and – quite deliberately – crassly contrived jokes, it proves deeply moving and leaves a lasting impression. The nonchalance in the approach to the classic drama is effectively offset by brilliant, original staging and choreographic ideas, which the versatile cast executes with tremendous energy and flair.”

https://www.facebook.com/przemek.gulda/posts/23 kwietnia 2026

“Knapik’s dynamic direction and the expressive language Kowańska employs in her adaptation of Hamlet, or even the montage of highlights, would not have guaranteed the success their production deserved were it not for the phenomenal actors and sensational actresses of the Polish Theatre. Michał Kaleta’s sinister expressions, the sweetness of Monika Roszko’s gaze, Mariusz Adamski’s composure, Alan Al-Murtatha’s clumsiness, Ewa Szumska’s controlled gestures and Kornelia Trawkowska’s ease are further strengths of Very Very Hamlet. Knapik and Kowańska guide the audience through the scenes of the prince’s encounter with his father’s ghost, his conversation with Ophelia, his dialogue with his mother in her bedroom, and his banter with the gravediggers. Right up to the duel sequence, which leaves no one any choice: just as in the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, it is clear from the outset that death awaits everyone in the end. And although, in our amusement, we find it hard to believe, it will not pass us by either. Very Very Hamlet is a mosaic-like farce based on Hamlet, which turns out to be a farce about dying. A funny one, as tragedies are – deadly.”

„Rzecz dzieje się w zakładzie pogrzebowym Very Hamlet, którego szóstka pracowników z zamiłowania do teatru elżbietańskiego i estetyki emo w sposób komiczny odgrywa scenki z rzeczonego dramatu (…) wypłukują je jednak z wszelkich szekspirowskich przyzwyczajeń i wprzegają w konwencję celowej sztuczności i groteski. Stają się wtedy jakby marionetkami w rękach szalonego inscenizatora, pogrywającego z szekspirowskimi postaciami dla zabawy i dowcipu. A skoro bohaterami spektaklu są osoby pracujące w zakładzie pogrzebowym (i w dramacie Szekspira trup ściele się gęsto), temat śmierci staje się istotnym elementem fabuły, choć nie jest poprowadzony tak śmiertelnie znowu poważnie.”

“The action takes place at the Very Hamlet funeral parlour, where six employees, driven by a passion for Elizabethan theatre and emo aesthetics, comically re-enact scenes from the aforementioned drama (…) yet they strip them of all Shakespearean conventions and harness them to a style of deliberate artificiality and the grotesque. They then become, as it were, puppets in the hands of a mad director, toying with Shakespearean characters for fun and humour. And since the protagonists of the production are people working in a funeral parlour (and in Shakespeare’s play the dead lie thick on the ground), the theme of death becomes a significant element of the plot, though it is not treated with such deadly seriousness.”

Mateusz Michalski, https://www.instagram.com/na.sztuki/, 26 April 2026

“In their treatment of the Shakespearean text, the creators demonstrate great alertness and a keen sense of rhythm. The original – at times verbose, baroque in its phrasing – is regularly ‘pierced’ by contemporary additions (the script is by Patrycja Kowańska): short punchlines, ironic comments, and sometimes even blunt, vulgar interjections. This device works primarily for comic effect, precisely marking the moments when the pathos of the classical language is pierced. Crucially, the boundary between Shakespeare’s text and the interlude remains clear – we know when the parenthesis begins and when it closes. Thanks to this, the tension on stage between the ‘high’ and ‘low’ registers of language does not blur, but becomes one of the main sources of humour.

“In Very Very Hamlet, the creators set the action in a funeral parlour. By no means to suggest that the place for this text today is on the dissection table. On the contrary: Knapik and Kowańska demonstrate that Shakespeare’s hero is still alive, albeit primarily as a sum of quotations, clichés, images or afterimages. They show Hamlet’s evolution: successive stagings, recurring themes, various incarnations of the character, as well as what the masterpiece increasingly roots in culture with every subsequent reading: the experience of death. The codes employed by Dominika Knapik, including the aesthetic ones, are deeply rooted in pop culture: slogans such as ‘memento mori’ or ‘dead inside’ on T-shirts, tight-fitting costumes reminiscent of Halloween death costumes. The actors and actresses loop Hamlet’s classic lines, and their voices sound mechanical, as if they had been run through a machine that anonymises speech. Everything happens very quickly, and the spectacle of the performance is further emphasised, with a touch of self-irony, by the performers who, when they are not on stage, sit at the sides of the stage eating popcorn.”