'Everybody involved in this production is extremely professional in the theatre scene,' she says during rehearsal in Sheung Wan. 'One of the things I really want to do is mix the two communities. That is something that Hong Kong theatre should do.'

It's an eclectic cast. Claudius is being played by David Booth, the architect who designed the Kwai Tsing Theatre. Social activist Leung Kwok-hung, alias 'Long Hair', also has a key role.

'It's a tremendously collaborative, collective energy,' says director Mike Ingham, a professor of English at Lingnan University.

Shakespeare's Hamlet is the tragic tale of a hero's struggle with the opposing forces of moral integrity and the need to avenge his father's murder.

'It's startlingly modern,' Ingham says. 'It's a hybrid play. The emphasis is not really on the revenge, but on people's reactions and their inabilities to communicate.'

Ingham has decided to stay true to Shakespeare's original text, but cut the performance to two and a half hours.

'The audience will be able to cope with the language because we work hard on bringing out the beauty, the power and drama of the language,' he says. 'We've got strong actors across the board. We've got local actors who are very good on iambic pentameter.'

However, this Hamlet is set in Hong Kong in 2014. In the original, Hamlet's father, the king of Denmark, has been killed by Claudius, who has then married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. Hamlet is visited by his father's ghost and told to avenge the murder, which sparks confusion and indecision, as enunciated in Hamlet's 'To be or not to be?' speech.

In Theatre Action's production, Hamlet's father is the SAR's chief executive. He is killed by Claudius, a Dane who is connected with a New World Order alliance that wants to change the Hong Kong leadership on the pretext of pre-empting the continuing threat of world terrorism.

Fortinbras emerges as the new king at the end of the original play. In this version, his character is called Fau Tin Bo - played by Leung - and he is the leader of a band of marauding anarchists in the New Territories.

Wearing a black 'Power to the People' T-shirt, Leung smiles and says he once owned a 'fat cat called Shakespeare', but that is where his familiarity with the playwright ends. 'I'm very happy to be taking part, though,' he says. 'It's a new thing for me.' The role seems to be a natural step, and perhaps a new direction, for the campaigner. Earlier this year, he staged Maybe Long Hair, Maybe Chezuro, an improvised theatre production at the Hong Kong Arts Centre.

Wu Kam-ming, the principal dancer of the Hong Kong Dance Company, will play a cameo role as one of the performers in the five-minute play within a play, The Mouse Trap (which will be choreographed by Edwin Leung). Radio Four presenter Jonathan Douglas will play the title role. His performance as Hamlet last year at the Fringe Club received positive reviews. 'This is a role that you agonise over, and lie awake at night thinking about,' he says. 'This is what you do when you love something.'

Douglas' soliloquies will be accompanied by piano and by rock band Dave Colquhoun and The Trio. He says he relishes the part. 'Doing it again, I'm seeing how mind-bogglingly rich and astonishing it is,' Douglas says. 'I feel as though I'm looking into a crystal which has these amazingly intricate patterns and, eventually, after you live with it for a few months, you see the patterns.'

The ghost of Hamlet's father will be played by Mok Chiu-yu, the founder of the Asian People's Theatre Festival Society. It will be the first time he has worked with Hong Kong's expatriate scene. 'It's fun working with them,' he says. 'It's a big variety of people.' Mok's mane of luminous white hair well suits him for the ghost role. Yeung brings a modern edge to Ophelia, as does award-winning actress Eliza Lau, as Gertrude.

'Ophelia is into exotic fragrances and soft drugs,' says Douglas with a smile. 'Hamlet is suddenly isolated in his home with the death of his father, and he meets this girl who is also isolated - so they connect. The mother is a rather glamorous ex-movie star, a very Hong Kong person.'

Ingham says Hamlet is by no means a likeable character, and abuses the two women closest to him.

'Their responses are normally a bit passive in the play,' he says. 'They cry, and that's it. Normally, Ophelia and Gertrude are neglected. We want to make them less like objects.

'We believe in hope for the future. At the end of tragedy there should be some sense of catharsis. Maybe hope in the future for us lies in hope for the education of the girls in China.'