Hamlet: Blood in the Brain November 3, 2006

'Hamlet: Blood in the Brain' relocates Shakespeare's kingdom of Elsinore to the drug-ravaged world of the Oakland, California community in the late 1980s. Focusing on the intense sociological pressures that occur in a community following an extreme act of violence, the play tells the story of one man confronted by sudden loss who must uphold the status of his community and his own corrupted lineage. It also captures the tensions within families and between territorialized, shattered communities tensions that result from unbearable secrets, blood oaths, corrupted ideals, glorified notions of honor, and sudden, mythic shifts in power.