Theater review: Hamlet
Aug. 6th, 2022 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troisoiseauxSaw Hamlet at the Park Avenue Armory, which was incredible— this was an import of the production, directed by Robert Icke, that starred Andrew Scott in London a few years back, with about half of the cast intact: not Scott, unfortunately, although I could see shades of his style in Alex Lawther's performance (at least during the second half, once things start to get murder-y) and it added Jennifer Ehle (1995 Pride and Prejudice's Elizabeth Bennett) as Gertrude. The Armory has been running this concurrently with Robert Icke's Oresteia.
This was probably the most elaborate staging of any play that I've ever seen; the Armory isn't actually a theater, and this production made fantastic use of the (massive!) space it had to work with. The stage was... slightly hard to describe? It was like there was the stage, and a glass-paneled hallway stretching across/behind it, and behind that was a "room" where, e.g., Claudius and Gertrude's wedding reception went on while Hamlet soliloquized. This production also incorporated a lot of multimedia elements: there was a big screen above the stage, where the ghost first appeared as a glitch on Elsinore's security footage, where taped "news segments" covered Claudius' coronation and Fortibras' military excursions into Poland, and which occasionally played a live feed from the stage: e.g., during the "mousetrap" scene/play-within-a-play, Hamlet et al. sat in the front row of the audience rather than on stage, and were filmed/live-streamed onto the screen.
Here's the thing: I really, really, really love Hamlet. One of the things I love about it is that - maybe more than other Shakespeare plays? - there's a lot of... flexibility, I guess, in how to stage it?? The STC's most recent production played Hamlet as a political thriller; this one was, like, a psychological horror-drama. An actor's inflection on this line, the way he holds himself when talking to that other character— different choices by the actors or director can bring such different emotions or implications to the same scene, even if not a single word of the text is changed or omitted.
Alex Lawther's Hamlet is waifish and slouching, all quick wit and small, languid motions, and somehow he feels more dangerous than other Hamlets I have seen. I've seen more than one review throw around the word "incel," and that checks out: something about Lawther's performance drew attention to the particularly incel-y flavor of Hamlet's venom towards Gertrude and Ophelia - wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners; his obsession with Gertrude's incestuous sheets - and, in this production, Guildenstern, who was played by a woman and as (in a truly *chef's kiss* example of how creative staging/acting can interpret the text) Hamlet's ex.
Other staging choices that are going to live rent-free in my head:
- Probably the biggest liberty that this production took with traditional staging/textual intent was the scene where Hamlet has the chance to kill Claudius and doesn't take it: instead of Claudius, praying, unaware of Hamlet's presence, it's Claudius, villain-monologuing to Hamlet, who has a gun pointed at him; his final line, words without thoughts never to heaven go, is delivered as a taunt, that Hamlet missed his chance to pull the trigger. (Honestly, this was the first production where I was surprised he didn't.)
- Is ending Shakespeare productions with the characters, like, symbolically in the afterlife... a Thing, now? The entire last scene was rather surreally staged; from the start of the duel to Gertrude's death, it was done completely wordlessly (that is, you could see the actors speaking, on the livestreamed close-ups on the screen above the stage, and there was music playing, but no one actually said lines out loud) and then, once everyone started dropping like flies, Hamlet's father's ghost stood by as a sentinel as they entered the "afterlife," an echo of the royal wedding at the beginning of the play, with Polonius and a veiled Ophelia getting the father-of-the-bride dance they never lived to actually have, as they wait for the others to join them. Hamlet, in a way, becomes a ghost before he actually dies; in one of my favorite little details of the play, he confirms this by checking his wrist for the watch he wears throughout the play, and finds it on his father's— a little posthumous (as it were) reveal that Hamlet has been wearing his father's watch as a memento.
- Claudius and Gertrude, at the beginning of play, are genuinely in love/a happy couple, but this production included a rarely-used First Folio scene, where Horatio tells Gertrude of Hamlet's return to Denmark - and that Claudius tried to send Hamlet to his death in England - so Gertrude realizes Claudius' betrayal earlier than usual.
- OPHELIA. This production did really well by Ophelia, imo, and Kirsty Rider was fantastic. Easily the best portrayal of Ophelia's madness that I've seen: she's played with a tendency to self-harm that is revealed earlier in the play, so her breakdown comes less out of left field than usual, and the "flowers" she presents to Gertrude et al. are her scars and bruises from self-harming.
- Rosencrantz, of all characters, also stole the show. The overall vibe of Guil. and Ros. was of Hamlet's ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend; Ros.'s, specifically, was that he was resentful of being dragged into Hamlet's mess, a bit of an anti-royalist (Both your majesties might, by the sovereign power you have of us, put your dread pleasures more into command than to entreaty was delivered with a fuck-you edge rather than obsequiousness, and earns him a clear "behave yourself" glare from Guil.), living for the chaos of the "mousetrap" scene, and ultimately realizes that he's in way over his head, when he and Guil. are sent off to track down Hamlet, who just murdered Polonius, and find him bloody up to the elbows. All of this, through the delivery of his lines and face/physical acting and like, vibes!! ACTING.
- Cross-casting the Player King and Hamlet's father's ghost is not in itself a unique staging choice, but having Hamlet recognize the resemblance, and be rattled by it, was a great one; in his conversation with the Player King, he chokes on the words "father" and "son". (Speaking of the ghost: this production was the least ambiguous I've seen about whether there was a ghost or it was all in Hamlet's head; there was, definitely, a ghost.)
- I think Polonius (Peter Wight— if I had a nickel for every actor in this production involved in different adaptations of Pride and Prejudice I'd have fifteen cents which isn't a lot but, etc.) was supposed to have, like, Alzheimer's, maybe?
- A general observation: I think Hamlet is, of Shakespeare's tragedies, the one that works the best in a modern setting, but unfortunately, I feel like modern fencing whites give a certain indignity to the final duel scene.
- All of the music in this production was by Bob Dylan and, weirdly, it worked.
This was probably the most elaborate staging of any play that I've ever seen; the Armory isn't actually a theater, and this production made fantastic use of the (massive!) space it had to work with. The stage was... slightly hard to describe? It was like there was the stage, and a glass-paneled hallway stretching across/behind it, and behind that was a "room" where, e.g., Claudius and Gertrude's wedding reception went on while Hamlet soliloquized. This production also incorporated a lot of multimedia elements: there was a big screen above the stage, where the ghost first appeared as a glitch on Elsinore's security footage, where taped "news segments" covered Claudius' coronation and Fortibras' military excursions into Poland, and which occasionally played a live feed from the stage: e.g., during the "mousetrap" scene/play-within-a-play, Hamlet et al. sat in the front row of the audience rather than on stage, and were filmed/live-streamed onto the screen.
Here's the thing: I really, really, really love Hamlet. One of the things I love about it is that - maybe more than other Shakespeare plays? - there's a lot of... flexibility, I guess, in how to stage it?? The STC's most recent production played Hamlet as a political thriller; this one was, like, a psychological horror-drama. An actor's inflection on this line, the way he holds himself when talking to that other character— different choices by the actors or director can bring such different emotions or implications to the same scene, even if not a single word of the text is changed or omitted.
Alex Lawther's Hamlet is waifish and slouching, all quick wit and small, languid motions, and somehow he feels more dangerous than other Hamlets I have seen. I've seen more than one review throw around the word "incel," and that checks out: something about Lawther's performance drew attention to the particularly incel-y flavor of Hamlet's venom towards Gertrude and Ophelia - wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners; his obsession with Gertrude's incestuous sheets - and, in this production, Guildenstern, who was played by a woman and as (in a truly *chef's kiss* example of how creative staging/acting can interpret the text) Hamlet's ex.
Other staging choices that are going to live rent-free in my head:
- Probably the biggest liberty that this production took with traditional staging/textual intent was the scene where Hamlet has the chance to kill Claudius and doesn't take it: instead of Claudius, praying, unaware of Hamlet's presence, it's Claudius, villain-monologuing to Hamlet, who has a gun pointed at him; his final line, words without thoughts never to heaven go, is delivered as a taunt, that Hamlet missed his chance to pull the trigger. (Honestly, this was the first production where I was surprised he didn't.)
- Is ending Shakespeare productions with the characters, like, symbolically in the afterlife... a Thing, now? The entire last scene was rather surreally staged; from the start of the duel to Gertrude's death, it was done completely wordlessly (that is, you could see the actors speaking, on the livestreamed close-ups on the screen above the stage, and there was music playing, but no one actually said lines out loud) and then, once everyone started dropping like flies, Hamlet's father's ghost stood by as a sentinel as they entered the "afterlife," an echo of the royal wedding at the beginning of the play, with Polonius and a veiled Ophelia getting the father-of-the-bride dance they never lived to actually have, as they wait for the others to join them. Hamlet, in a way, becomes a ghost before he actually dies; in one of my favorite little details of the play, he confirms this by checking his wrist for the watch he wears throughout the play, and finds it on his father's— a little posthumous (as it were) reveal that Hamlet has been wearing his father's watch as a memento.
- Claudius and Gertrude, at the beginning of play, are genuinely in love/a happy couple, but this production included a rarely-used First Folio scene, where Horatio tells Gertrude of Hamlet's return to Denmark - and that Claudius tried to send Hamlet to his death in England - so Gertrude realizes Claudius' betrayal earlier than usual.
- OPHELIA. This production did really well by Ophelia, imo, and Kirsty Rider was fantastic. Easily the best portrayal of Ophelia's madness that I've seen: she's played with a tendency to self-harm that is revealed earlier in the play, so her breakdown comes less out of left field than usual, and the "flowers" she presents to Gertrude et al. are her scars and bruises from self-harming.
- Rosencrantz, of all characters, also stole the show. The overall vibe of Guil. and Ros. was of Hamlet's ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend; Ros.'s, specifically, was that he was resentful of being dragged into Hamlet's mess, a bit of an anti-royalist (Both your majesties might, by the sovereign power you have of us, put your dread pleasures more into command than to entreaty was delivered with a fuck-you edge rather than obsequiousness, and earns him a clear "behave yourself" glare from Guil.), living for the chaos of the "mousetrap" scene, and ultimately realizes that he's in way over his head, when he and Guil. are sent off to track down Hamlet, who just murdered Polonius, and find him bloody up to the elbows. All of this, through the delivery of his lines and face/physical acting and like, vibes!! ACTING.
- Cross-casting the Player King and Hamlet's father's ghost is not in itself a unique staging choice, but having Hamlet recognize the resemblance, and be rattled by it, was a great one; in his conversation with the Player King, he chokes on the words "father" and "son". (Speaking of the ghost: this production was the least ambiguous I've seen about whether there was a ghost or it was all in Hamlet's head; there was, definitely, a ghost.)
- I think Polonius (Peter Wight— if I had a nickel for every actor in this production involved in different adaptations of Pride and Prejudice I'd have fifteen cents which isn't a lot but, etc.) was supposed to have, like, Alzheimer's, maybe?
- A general observation: I think Hamlet is, of Shakespeare's tragedies, the one that works the best in a modern setting, but unfortunately, I feel like modern fencing whites give a certain indignity to the final duel scene.
- All of the music in this production was by Bob Dylan and, weirdly, it worked.
