Gábor Tompa’s Staging of Hamlet to be Performed at the Craiova International Shakespeare Festival

William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Hamlet, directed by Gábor Tompa, will be performed at the 15th edition of the Craiova International Shakespeare Festival. The performance will take place on Monday, May 25, at 7:00 p.m. at the Amza Pellea Hall of the Marin Sorescu National Theater in Craiova. This season, Cluj audiences will have one last chance to see the performance on Wednesday, May 20, at 7 pm in the Main Hall of the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj.

“The Craiova International Shakespeare Festival will take place from May 21 to 31, 2026, with this year’s motto: WILL matters | Will creates matter – an invitation to discover will as a creative force in a city that transforms into an open stage for 11 days! WILL matters stems from a simple yet powerful idea: through will, everything we imagine and dream of becomes reality. Shakespeare continues to act as a living energy today, brought to life again and again by the stage and the gaze of the audience. The festival is a complete urban experience in which Craiova pulsates simultaneously across multiple spaces and rhythms. It is an event where every participant — audience member, artist, volunteer, or partner — feels they have a place and a voice: we experience the festival together and create it together.” — as stated on the festival’s website.

The production Hamlet, directed by Gábor Tompa, has performed at three festivals so far: in 2022 at the 32nd National Theater Festival in Bucharest, at the 8th Interferences International Theatre Festival in Cluj, and at the 8th Madách International Theater Meeting.

“Tompa's new Hamlet is about to lose itself in the world of the new, in the world of Claudius. Barely carried by the shoulders of his friends in Wittenberg's Bande à part and the arms of Ophelia, Hamlet gains the power to unmask the cartoon world we have come to live in. But animated by cartoons and nothing else/noBody else, the world is doomed to start all over again in the following second. It takes newer and newer Hamlets. It takes us. What about us?”- wrote Mihai Brezeanu about the production.

The title role is played by guest actor Miklós H. Vecsei, with an ensemble cast made up of Ervin Szűcs, Imola Kézdi, Balázs Bodolai, Zsolt Gedő, András Buzási, Ferenc Sinkó, Zsuzsa Tőtszegi, József Bíró, Tamás Kiss, Éva Imre, Anikó Pethő, Szabolcs Balla, Lucian Chirilă, Gizella Kicsid, Venczel Lőrincz-Szabó and Sára Viola.

The production is directed by Gábor Tompa, the creative team also including set designer András Both, costume designer Bianca Imelda Jeremias, dramaturg András Visky, composer Vasile Șirli, choreographer Melinda Jakab, video designer András Rancz and Gyopár Bocskai, assistant costume designer.

Tickets for the guest performance of Hamlet in Craiova are available at the Marin Sorescu National Theater's box office and online at https://shakespearefestival. online/program/hamlet/, while tickets for Cluj performances are available at the theatre's box office (weekdays between 10 am and 2 pm) and online at huntheater.biletmaster.ro.