The prevailing assumption is that, in order to play Hamlet, the "most coveted" role of all, you have to be an experienced actor, not to mention a "wizened" veteran, before you can even begin to understand in depth all the layers of the work and its philosophical, political and psychological aspects. I'm reminded of the attitude of the world of Kabbala toward those who want to enter it. Similarly, in the case of "Hamlet," it would seem, one needs maturity, uprightness and an absence of libido just to peruse its pages, to peek into this Shakespearean garden.

It goes almost without saying that a baby like me, with limited experience both as an actor and as a human being, will quake with fear at the very thought. How to enter such gigantic shoes? Is it even possible? The obvious answer, of course, is that it's time to throw away the shoes and walk barefoot. On burning coals. Without question, the most pertinent argument put forward by the director, Omri Nitzan, in trying to persuade me to take the part, was his description of it as a journey to maturity.

Just as every drama deals with the emergence of a new reality, one that is different from what existed previously, this one, too, is about an emerging personality. With that approach, I was able to look at the work for a moment in a different light, one less threatening. I will be so bold as to say less "bloated," less "significant." I am convinced that young William (Shakespeare) did not think of himself in such terms. I can only assume that he was preoccupied with more important matters than being thought of as a learned person bloated with self-importance.

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I know I'm taking a risk here, but I think we're talking about a headstrong fellow who wanted to be loved and wanted people to see the theater he was creating, and was even ready to take distinctly commercial measures - which in our day would be considered cheap and populist - to sell tickets. Well, yes, he also happened to be a genius, and that never hurt anyone. It's even recommended. But let's get serious for a bit. The man inserts into a single play ghosts, parties, poisonings, a play-within-a-play, a swordfight, clowns. The only thing that's missing is a pack of dogs, and there you have it: a circus. And I haven't yet mentioned the plot, which a B-league Hollywood producer would say might work as a telenovela. The amazing thing is that within this interweaving of the serious and the frivolous, of philosophy and pop, a perfect mix emerges.

Now, having stripped the play of its importance, I can start to concentrate on the character, try to look for the coming-to-maturity story. The first clue I found appears early in the play. Here is a tormented young man, about to explode any second like an adolescent pimple, and the only way to prevent it is to run. Where to? To Wittenberg. Why? To study, to understand, to find answers, meaning, import.

I take it that in terms of education he already knows quite a bit, but he certainly knows nothing about life. He doesn't have the maturity to weld intelligence and feeling, and the two are in constant collision, typical of youths his age. The first evidence of his almost childish naivete is seen after his father's ghost reveals itself to him and commands him to avenge his death. Flabbergasted at the discovery that his father was murdered, he says, " ... meet it is I set it down / That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."

This discovery surprises him no less than learning that his uncle murdered his father. I feel like telling him: Good morning, Mr. Hamlet. Tell me, when was the last time you turned on the TV? When did you see a prime minister address the nation? In his first soliloquy as well, Hamlet harps obsessively on the issue of the time that elapsed between his father's death and his mother's marriage to his uncle - "a little month." Well, really. As though you would have accepted this marriage if a year had passed. Again an analytic, mathematical element - time - collides with an emotional element: love.

The first time Hamlet tries to reconcile these polar opposites is in the soliloquy "To be, or not to be." Once more he tries to fuse intelligence and feeling, and also reality and fantasy, the known with the unknown. He does this by, for the first time, placing a question mark at the end of a sentence - quite a rarity for youngsters, one of whose trademarks is their feeling that they always know everything.

With great difficulty, I take the first step into the rehearsal room. Like a little boy on his first day in the first grade, I am afraid of what lies ahead, scared, won't let go of mommy's hand. Flashing through my mind are the first words of the first soliloquy spoken by the Danish prince whom I am purporting to play: "Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!" I am consoled by the fact that Hamlet and I have forged an alliance of fear from the first moment. True, his motivations are different from mine, and vaster, but I have the feeling that on the day fear is transformed into strength, things will be better for both of us in regard to the task we are shouldering.

The rehearsal begins with a series of handshakes and hearty good wishes. God, how much trust I will have to place in these actors. Can they be a buttress for my multitude of weaknesses? Without any further ado, we take our seats around the table for a first reading of the play together. Soon enough I feel how my voice is betraying me, exposing my shame. Here comes that accursed sentence, and there is no escape: To be, or not to be - that is the question. The weight that rests on these words is insupportable, not least because of the hundreds of interpretations. When my turn comes, it seems to me, a new interpretation - mine - is attached: To be Hamlet or not to be? To read or not to read? That is the question.

I clear my throat and throw myself into the line that has become a label, but what comes out could be a grocery list, monotonous and quiet, as though I were a mouse that skittered into the room for a moment, squeaked, and escaped back into its hole. It's interesting that I choose this image, because the mousetrap metaphor will appear later. In the meantime, the impression is that I and no other am the mouse in the trap.

The notion of Hamlet's madness in terms of a mask in the form of a clown or a fool occupies me quite a bit, and I have various reinforcements and rationales for the concept. The idea derives from the chapter on "Hamlet" in Harold Bloom's book "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human," in which he proposes an intriguing conjecture about the place of Yorick the jester. In the monologue, Hamlet speaks as he holds Yorick's skull, he says, "He hath borne me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! ... Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft." He seems to be evoking a father figure, or an au pair at least.

Moreover, Hamlet's father, who is described as a seasoned and respected army commander, was immersed in wars and affairs of state, and as often occurs, the role he was compelled to play generated a remoteness between him and his family. Perhaps this is the reason for the dubious relationship with Gertrude? I presume that such relations left Hamlet afraid of his father; some sort of alienation must have existed between them.

Something in Hamlet's reverence for this father, which appears often in the text, gives the impression that for the son, the father was more of a symbol than a human being. Someone had to fill that emotional void, someone completely different, who plays a role the very opposite of the king's: Yorick, the wild, irresponsible clown. It strikes me that it is from these relationships that Hamlet's fondness for the various arts, and acting particularly, springs.

The fool-clowns are undoubtedly the first standup comics. By virtue of their superb ability to make others laugh, they can criticize and hold a mirror up to us, and we do not back away from our reflection or shut our ears. At the start of the "play-within-a-play" scene, Hamlet actually seems to do a standup act. I suggest to Omri that we use a microphone in order to externalize this element, maybe even have a drum roll after every punchline. For example, when Hamlet turns to Ophelia: "Lady, shall I lie in your lap?"

Ophelia: "No my lord."

Hamlet: "I mean, my head upon your lap?" [Drum roll.]

Ophelia: "Aye, my lord."

Hamlet: "Did you think I meant country matters?" [Drum roll.]

Ophelia: "I think nothing, my lord."

Hamlet: "That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs." [Drum roll.]

A funny, shocking nightmare visited me. I am backstage with the cast. In the background, loud applause is heard. I conclude that we are at the end of the play and that we had a tremendous success. Suddenly Omri arrives on the run, perspiring and perturbed, and tells me, "You forgot!"

"Forgot what?"

"You forgot, you forgot!"

"What did I forget, Omri?"

"To be or not to be!!!"

"No way - how could that be? How can you forget 'To be or not to be'?"

"The fact is, you forgot!"

"What are we going to do?"

"Say it now, in the curtain call."

In the dream, we went onstage, took one bow, and then I stopped the applause and addressed the audience in an apologetic tone, "Distinguished audience, I'm sorry, I forgot. To be, or not to be - that is the question." God help us.

After nearly 500 performances of "Hamlet," it's definitely time for some mental stocktaking. Time to ask questions that I long since forgot how to ask, such as: How did I ever get into this situation? Whereas he (Hamlet) hurtles forward from one performance to the next, like a bull in Pamplona, it sometimes seems to me that my own essence has been trampled underfoot by him, like someone in the crowd fleeing for his life in that mad festival.

I am often asked how I still have the strength to play the part, if I haven't grown fed up with the mad Dane. Well, at a certain point I started to reply that it felt to me like I was beginning to get fed up. Yes, yes. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this guy, who is without any doubt part of my personality, started to claim ownership of my life, wanting to turn me into a housewife who would feed him and do his laundry, while he romped on stages entertaining audiences and having a ball. At a certain point I started to feel superfluous. I tried to protest, to conduct a life of my own, but in vain.

My friends started to get bored with me. Whenever I had something clever to say in some social circle, it was usually accompanied by a quotation from (you guessed it) Hamlet. If he was a fun guy, that would be one thing. But let's be honest: the guy is simply unbearable! Self-centered, always complaining, unutterably pessimistic, filled with fears and inferiority feelings, convinced he's being persecuted, suspicious of everyone, arrogant, violent, capricious and chronically unable to make up his mind. To be or not to be, that is the question? Leave us be, go home, think about what you want to be, and come back when you have an answer! Until then, stop bothering us with your nonsense!

Okay, I admit, I got a little carried away. In a certain sense, I am conducting a life that is a nightmare sweeter than honey.

Every sane actor knows that a professional certificate in this profession is worthless if you don't have an audience or a stage to perform on when evening comes. As my teacher and mentor, Gary Bilu, often says, "The only actors I pity are those who are out of work." There are of course numberless other pleasures.

Beyond the professional satisfaction, the livelihood, the prizes, the honors, the trips all over the world, how can one forget the love of the audience? The audience that waits months to obtain tickets to see Shakespeare. No more and no less. Who would have believed it? Shakespeare a hit? You could write a play of the absurd based on those words in juxtaposition. But it's the truth, and in that fact there also lies (I will dare to say) a mission. A mission that it is my privilege and honor to be entrusted with. And not only in front of older people, but also before thousands of high school students, who are discovering the play for the first time and are stunned by the fact that they are enjoying themselves and display interest and hunger for more.

They are discovering that these magnificent works belong to everyone and are for everyone, and that theater and classics of this kind still have new things to say. "To hold as 'twere the mirror up to Nature - to show ... the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." That mirror, it must be noted (and heavily underlined), is not held by me alone. I would have buckled under the burden and left long ago, were it not for the wonderful, committed and one-time ensemble cast that performs alongside me. Some of them have highly complex and very instrumental parts. Gil Frank as Claudius, Sara von Schwartze as Gertrude, Itzhak Heskia as Polonius and Neta Garti as Ophelia. And many other fine actors, too, without whose participation this event would not have reached its 500th performance. I want to take this opportunity to thank them for the genuine pleasure of working with them.