The Tel Aviv-based Cameri Theatre’s new production of Hamlet is one of the most important plays to be performed in Israel in recent years, having won five Israeli awards in 2005, including the Best Production, Best Director and Best Actor. First staged that year, it has now been performed more than 800 times around the world. Chinese audiences got a glimpse first at the Shanghai Drama Arts Theater from March 11 to15.

The play, in Hebrew with Chinese subtitles, saw only 600 lucky people have the opportunity to watch. The production featured a very special stage and chairs where traditional stages separated actors from the audience but this one linked them. The stage extended like a catwalk into the audience; the actors moved among the audience throughout the play; and the chairs could swivel 360 degrees so that the audience could more easily follow the fast-flowing and lively performances around them.

The actors circulated rapidly among the audience, with sophisticated computer technology used to project the English translation onto the walls behind the moving actors. The actors and audience were in such close proximity the audience could "hear the performers' breathing, see the words in their mouths and the tears in their eyes."

Revolving seats, dynamic staging