The fusion of Burnett’s Killer of Sheep and Shakespeare’s Hamlet is adapted for multiangled screens by Erika Kiss with original music by Olivier Tarpaga. The multidimensional adaptation from the 2D film screen subverts the conventional single fixed-point perspective and the hierarchy it enforces between spectators and the object of their fixed gaze. The immersive cineplay simulates the internal space in which the mind’s eye imaginatively transforms the 2D perception captured by the physical organ of the eyes into a volumized and dynamized space and time continuum that looks back at the mind’s eye from everywhere.
The audience is encouraged to move around or turn their heads and choose with their own built-in cameras, also known as eyes, the most productive perspectives from which to follow the story of the dejected slaughterhouse worker from the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Stan’s depression – like Hamlet’s – is framed by the existential dread of the eternal cycle from being fed to be killed to be eaten, the unavoidable corruption of states and marriages and no hope for advancement. What keeps the killer of sheep chained to the vicious circle of beings despite his Hamletian depression is his small daughter’s doglike loyalty and dependence.