#5. Hamlet
The Wooster Group
One of New York City's most acclaimed avant-garde theater troupes turns Shakespeare's tragedy into a weird deconstructionist stunt. Projected onstage is the entire filmed record of a 1964 stage production of Hamlet starring Richard Burton. As the images jump around, fuzz over and fade out altogether, the live actors mimic the old version down to every last gesture and camera angle — even the jump cuts in the old film stock. A commentary on the evanescence of this "too, too solid flesh"? A send-up of the fruitlessness of "interpreting" this over-interpreted play? Whatever, oddly spellbinding.