Denmark, 4 a.m. The early morning sky still boasts the magnificent blue and green of the northern lights while a crisp chill in the air renders your breath visible as it floats beyond the gazebo where you stand.
This is Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1, as you've never experienced it before. Transported virtually to Helsingør, Denmark, you become Barnardo, a castle guard. Together with Francisco, Marcellus, and Horatio, you encounter the ghost of the king, Hamlet's dead father, who seeps in and out of your line of sight as you follow his trail. In a flash, he disappears. But you remain, entranced by this modern revisiting of classic literature where 21st-century technology meets 17th-century Shakespeare.
Hamlet may be a play centred on death, but the birth of this virtual reality project from Dr. Peter Kuling, (pictured) professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies in the College of Arts, is keeping the story alive for a contemporary audience.
If, as Shakespeare wrote, "brevity is the soul of wit," is technology the future of theatre?
Virtual learning opens the door to a modern Shakespeare
Kuling, a director more familiar with the stage, co-designed the Hamlet VR Experience with SimWave, using a grant from eCampusOntario's Central Virtual Learning Platform, now called Ontario Exchange. The idea of taking a more virtual approach to theatre was born of the pandemic when many aspects of education were upended and forced to shape-shift digitally.
VR elevates learning by "creating this atmosphere where you literally become part of the story," said Kuling, who speaks with fervor when discussing this version of Hamlet that enabled his team to incorporate details impossible to convey on the stage.
The Hamlet VR Experience uses the garden where the king is killed in the shadow of Kronborg Castle as its setting for the story. The nearly-neon glow of the sky is echoed in the green that surrounds the ghost - a floating apparition in VR and no longer a human actor - and that turns the eyes of the garden's statues a similar chartreuse when the phantasmic presence approaches.
