Before Opening, the Wooster Group's Hamlet Extends for Two Weeks

Before its October 31 opening night, the Wooster Group's production of Hamlet has announced a two-week extension, through December 2. Presented at the Public Theater in association with St. Ann's Warehouse, Hamlet marks the debut of the Wooster Group at The Public in a production directed by Elizabeth LeCompte.

The Wooster Group's Hamlet is described as an archeological excursion into an icon of America's cultural past, Richard Burton's Hamlet. Burton's legendary 1964 Broadway production was recorded in performance and shown as a film for two days only in 2000 U.S. movie houses. The idea of bringing a live theater experience to thousands of simultaneous viewers in different cities was trumpeted as a new form called "Theatrofilm." The current Hamlet attempts to reverse this process, reconstructing a hypothetical theater piece from the fragmentary evidence of the edited film, like an archeologist inferring an improbable temple from a collection of ruins.

Hamlet features Scott Shepherd as Hamlet; Kate Valk as Gertrude and Ophelia; Ari Fliakos as Claudius; and Dominique Bousquet, Alessandro Magania, Daniel Pettrow, Bill Raymond, Casey Spooner of Fischerspooner, and Judson Williams in a variety of roles.