ABSTRACT
This chapter looks back at the process of creating “Hamlet on the Wire” (Hamlet sur le fil), a short performance straddling theater, contemporary circus, and sound art. To adapt the western canon’s iconic play to a contemporary circus context, the director, who was also the playwright and researcher, found himself negotiating multiple artistic roles and wrestling with the very notion of writing and authorship, as the text, textuality, and texture became embodied in physical prowess. This ontological blurring of boundaries made way for the creation of a hybrid piece, drawing from acrobatic disequilibrium and the intellectual somersaults of the canonical soliloquy. Searching for balance and waltzing between hesitation and redemptive risk, the piece presented Hamlet as a tightwire walker, an artist, and a researcher. This chapter examines the processes of translating, adapting, and transposing an impossible act.
