Ed Fernandez decided to include "Hamlet" in the Ephrata Performing Arts Center's 2010 season for one reason and one reason only.

Tim Riggs.

"I knew Tim was Hamlet. And that was everything," Fernandez says.

You can't do a production of "Hamlet" without an actor who's got the chops.

Fernandez knew Riggs had them.  In the past few years, they had worked together on two especially intense plays, "Frozen," about a child murderer, and "Pillowman," about a deranged writer. 

Riggs went all the way emotionally with the two characters. Fernandez knew he could handle the volatility and complexity of Hamlet.

"It's incredibly exciting for a director to say you're Hamlet," says Riggs, who is indeed playing the Danish prince in "Hamlet," opening Thursday at EPAC.

It's daunting too.

"It's a monster — exciting, taxing, unpredictable," says Riggs. "This play captures more of the essence of humanity than anything I've read or worked on."

EPAC's 'Hamlet:' Selected scenes and commentary

Hamlet is a huge character.

"I've got to compartmentalize him," Riggs says. "Contain the torrents of emotion, expansive wit, intellect, passion, the nihilism."

Shakespeare doesn't make it easy, Riggs says.

"There are leaps that make sense and leaps that aren't so easy to make," he says.

Fernandez and Riggs agree they've been taking the rehearsal process — when it isn't being interrupted by blizzards — one  step at a time. They kept themselves open to new ideas as they surfaced. 

"Oh, it's a mess," Fernandez says with a laugh. "It's such a burst of humanity, it poured out of him. Shakespeare vomited out his soul."

The poetry, the ideas are deeper than anything else Shakespeare would ever write.

"I believe it came from his subconscious — that's where all art comes from," Fernandez says. "The subconscious is a place where we have no fear."

"Hamlet" was written about a year after Shakespeare's young son, Hamnet, died. Shakespeare revised the play not long after his father died.

Was he grappling with his feelings as he wrote the story, going off on all kinds of philosophical tangents? Was he trying to make a statement?

"Shakespeare tells us throughout the play not to try to figure this out," says Riggs. 

The play exists on a number of levels. 

On the surface, it's a revenge play. Hamlet comes home to Denmark after his father's death, only to discover, through a ghost who claims to be his dead father, that it was his uncle, Claudius, who killed him.

And even worse, Claudius is now married to Hamlet's mother, Gertrude.

Hamlet sets out to avenge his father's death, wreaking all kinds of havoc as he goes along.

It's also a political play about a state that is falling apart and people grasping for power.

But Shakespeare is interested in more than whether or not Hamlet should take revenge for his father's death and how that will effect the rotten state of Denmark.

He's exploring the human condition, the idea of what life is, what death is, how man finds his place in the world.

"To be or not to be," the ultimate question of life and death, may just be the most famous line in all of the theater. 

"I have seven of the most famous monologues in dramatic literature to deliver," Riggs says. "All I want to do is make them live."

Is he intimidated? No, he relishes them. 

"Those are the most exciting times in the play. There's a reason they are so famous," he says. "I'm grateful that my experience as an actor allows me to dive in."

It is essential, both Riggs and Fernandez agree, that actor and director are heading in the same direction, understanding the complexity and drama of the play in the same way.

"I fancy myself a fearless actor," Riggs says. "But no actor is truly fearless. Ed has a way of breaking me free. He's instinctual, he'll feel something and tell me to just go with it."

"You can't narrow Hamlet down," Fernandez says. "He's a man caught in  a quagmire of morality and passion — as Shakespeare says, 'The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.' You have to let him be."

"Hamlet"
Opens Thurs. Through March 6
Feb. 25-27 and March 3-6, at 8 p.m.
$20-$26
Ephrata Playhouse in the Park
320 Cocalico St.
Ephrata Community Park, 733-7966
www.ephrataperformingartscenter.com