Twenty-first-century theater assumes that the classics must be betrayed to bring them closer to the modern world. A betrayal of traditional forms that, while preserving the plot and characters, revolutionizes the way stories are told. Hamlet from the Berlin Schaubühne directed by Thomas Ostermeier It is a paradigmatic example. Since its premiere in 2008, it has become an iconic proposal celebrated all over the world, which passed like lightning in December of that year through the Teatre Lliure and has now inaugurated the Temporada Alta festival at the Teatre Municipal de Girona.

A generation of Catalan theatergoers has grown up with director Thomas Ostermeier (Soltau, 1968). Àlex Rigola began bringing him to Barcelona when he was running the Teatre Lliure as one of his references for staging radically contemporary classics that, at the same time, maintained the essence of the text. Throughout this time, the Temporada Alta festival has programmed some of its shows and the 34th edition of the festival kicks off this weekend at the Teatre Municipal de Girona with its Hamlet, which was already seen in the Fabià Puigserver hall of the Lliure two nights in December 2008, a few months after the German premiere. The show's run in Barcelona had the curious fact that one of the actors fell ill at the last minute and Ostermeier himself had to play the role of Horacio, with the script in his hand, shirtless, on his knees and wrapped in plastic.