ABSTRACT
The post-communist condition has been defined as a forestalled democratic transition whose ultimate goals of freedom, justice, and economic prosperity have been hijacked by oligarchic groups. Bulgarian post-communism has generated a facade democracy, marked by a vast divide between haves and have-nots, a feeble middle class, and pervasive corruption that have resulted in a devastating demographic crisis, civic apathy and desperation. The Hamlet Adventure rings with profound disillusionment about the marginalization of art in post-communist social life. Within the context of post-communism’s long crisis, Georgi Tenev and Ivan Dobchev’s play combines a reimagining of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet with a trenchant analysis of the state of Bulgaria and the toll that a dysfunctional polity takes on the intellectual. Started in 2000 by two theatre professionals as an after-school program to counter the psychological devastation of post-communism, it has blossomed as a feature of community life.
