Heiner Müller - Hamletmachine

Heiner Müller

Hamletmachine 

translated by Dennis Redmond © 2001

Barbara Köppe, Heiner Müller, 1990 – © Barbara Köppe

2
THE EUROPE OF THE WOMAN 

Enormous room. Ophelia. Her heart is a clock. 

OPHELIA [CHORUS/HAMLET] I am Ophelia. She who the river could not hold. The woman on the gallows The woman with the slashed arteries The woman with the overdose ON THE LIPS SNOW The woman with the head in the gas-oven. Yesterday I stopped killing myself. I am alone with my breasts my thighs my lap. I rip apart the instruments of my imprisonment the Stool the Table the Bed. I destroy the battlefield that was my Home. I tear the doors off their hinges to let the wind and the cry of the World inside. I smash the Window. With my bleeding hands I tear the photographs of the men who I loved and who used me on the Bed on the Table on the Chair on the Floor. I set fire to my prison. I throw my clothes into the fire. I dig the clock which was my heart out of my breast. I go onto the street, clothed in my blood.

5 
WILDSTRAINING / IN THE FEARSOME ARMAMENTS / MILLENIA

Deep sea. Ophelia in wheelchair. Fish wreckage corpses and body-parts stream past. 

OPHELIA While two men in doctor’s smocks wrap her from top to bottom in white bandages. 

Here speaks Electra. In the Heart of Darkness. Under the Sun of Torture. To the Metropolises of the World. In the Names of the Victims. I expel all the semen which I have received. I transform the milk of my breasts into deadly poison. I suffocate the world which I gave birth to, between my thighs. I bury it in my crotch. Down with the joy of oppression. Long live hate, loathing, rebellion, death. When she walks through your bedroom with butcher’s knives, you’ll know the truth. 

Exit men. Ophelia remains on the stage, motionless in the white packaging.