On the 21st of February, 2012 at 18-00 on the Small Stage (74 Chapaeva st.) the opening night of the performance «To Be or Not to Be? It's Not Even a Question», staged by young theater director Dmitry Volkostrelov took place.

On the 21st of February, 2012 at 18-00 on the Small Stage (74 Chapaeva st.) the opening night of the performance «To Be or Not to Be? It's Not Even a Question», staged by young theater director Dmitry Volkostrelov took place.

The creative laboratory “The Fourth Height” turned five years old in 2011 and celebrated this with The Shakespeare Festival (seventh creative laboratory "Fourth height").  From October 27 to November 1, 2011 six interesting directors from Russia and Europe presented sketch performances of Shakespearean drama. Together with Saratov Kiselev Youth Theatre actors they prepared modern interpretations of the great works by William Shakespeare; according to the laboratory’s format after each show there was a detailed and in-depth discussion with theater critics and the audience. Guests participated in the Festival were Chairman of the Russia’s Shakespeare Academy of Sciences Commission Alexey Bartoshevich, and the leading drama critic of Russia Oleg Loyevsky, theater critic and theater columnist for the "Moskovsky Komsomolets" Marina Raikina, theater columnist for the “The Moscow Times” John Freedman.

One of the most interesting discussions was after the sketch performance by Dmitry Volkostrelov “To Be or Not to Be? Without Question”. Young director from Moscow and St. Petersburg together with theater’s actors tried to show the modern impression from the one of the key moments of “Hamlet” by W. Shakespeare.
For the first time on the Saratov theater stage a documentary theater performance was presented, prepared with the famous “verbatim” technique. It’s not a director’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s work but a whole gallery of opinions, thoughts and variations based on Hamlet’s monologue. The sources for those impressions were Internet blogs and materials collected by actors and the director on the Saratov streets.

Theater text appeared from that showed what modern young people think or know about on famous “To be or not to be?” monologue, they were suggested to think about the situation of being between life and death, the process of making such decision.
The design of the performance is traditionally minimal as in many documentary theater and laboratory works. Actors read their texts with only a video stream in the background.

Theater critic John Freedman noted Dmitry Volkostrelov’s laboratory work in his article “Shakespeare in Saratov” published on The Moscow Times website on the 7th of November, 2011:  « Perhaps predictably, the contemporary ruminations on thoughts of life and death drifted into banalities, consumer concerns, indifference and misunderstanding. None of that made the performance itself any less compelling, for this emerged as a true example of bringing new life to an old text».