There is something leaking in the State of Denmark, a Hamlet that drips its tragic immorality on to the stage in icy, spreading pools.
This is a dark, post-industrial version of the play - a winter Hamletas of gaslights and metal.
It is a full 3.5 hours, and moreover is spoken entirely in Lithuanian ('to be or not to be', incidentally, sounds like 'wudya na wudya').
This means, to a mostly English-speaking audience, that the performance is defined by its images and its powerful acting: and, although the night is long, it is not found lacking.
Director Eimuntas Nekrosius is a conjuror of outrageous fortune. We cannot daydream, because we do not know what contortions and manipulations the play will give us next. Enter, stage left, Ophelia, in green gown smoking a pipe, sitting on a coffin like a boat.
Or Hamlet and Laertes' fight: hunched on the ground, facing the floor in despair, with the other players swishing sticks in the air to violent musical rhythm.
