Boldness be my friend

Hamlet_Avataar, on the other hand, recasts Shakespeare's Hamlet in the mold of Korean clown theater. Director Hyoung-taek Limb says the decision to present what is ostensibly Shakespeare's most serious work - the protagonist spends much of his time pondering over profoundly existential questions - as a farce is inspired by the play within the play in Shakespeare's original version. In Elizabethan England, such set pieces would be played like a pantomime, by masked actors - a performance device that resonates with Limb's chosen theater form on several levels.

The director also wanted to highlight the fact that most of the characters in Hamlet hide their true feelings. Hamlet, for instance, pretends to be mad in public and bares his soul only to the audience through his iconic soliloquies. In Hamlet_Avataar, Limb has linked the idea of switching between different personae to the Hindu concept of reincarnation, or avatar. Hence the inclusion of Bengali spiritual compositions, sung by the virtuoso performer Parvathy Baul.