Hamlet

Hamlet
By William Shakespeare. Belvoir. Director: Simon Stone. October 12 – December 1, 2013.

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play and one of his most influential, so it’s little wonder that whenever a company puts it on its playbill that it comes with a lot of added pressure and expectation. I did have high expectations for this production. It has such a superb cast it seemed like it would be an obvious win for Belvoir. But a strong cast and solid production support cannot save a show if its structure is flawed.

It’s understandable that director Simon Stone would want to cut down this classic text. But when audience members are overheard at the end of the show trying to figure out whether Hamlet in fact killed himself or was killed, two things become very obvious, the cut down is too economical and Stone assumes that the audience has an intimate knowledge of the story. This is unfair and arrogant. It is also arrogant to assume that it is obvious as to which actor is playing which character rather than having a cast/role list in the program, particularly when three key characters (Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) are combined into one amorphous “role”. It doesn’t make sense and it cheats not only the audience but also the cast out of key relationships which serve to show Hamlet’s humour and humanity. 

I am all for short snappy modern takes on classics - Sport for Jove’s Hamlet was an excellent example of how a classic can be made accessible for a new generation. But Stone’s offering goes from being confused, to frustrating, to just downright silly and not in a good way. Overall this production has the hallmarks of Simon Stone’s Thyestes (which was probably one of the most incredible productions I have ever seen). Stone can realise great theatre but in this case he is looking to discover Nirvana in the same place twice.

This is a production that puts style over substance and shock value over real emotional impact. However, that said there were real stand-out moments - the reinvention of the closet scene shows just what this show could have been if it had more restraint and thought during rehearsal. Emily Barclay as Ophelia, turned what is usually one of those squirm in your chair ‘oh this is an awkwardly bad role’ into something that made me care about what happened to her. The ghosts of those killed by Hamlet hovering around the stage was clever and added to his madness. But Toby Schmitz as Hamlet was miscast. Schmitz is an excellent actor (as are his colleagues) but in this show his performance was laboured and self-conscious - the edit didn’t allow him the space to show the light and shade of the character - so what Hamlet becomes is just a whinging, self indulgent prat without the depth.

The stark ‘white box‘ set in the second half offsetting the oppressive ‘black box‘ set of the first half was interesting, but the fake blood started to upstage the action. And turning the 'players scene' in to a puppet show was naff and a little under-graduate.

The decision to arm Hamlet with a gun (instead of a knife or a sword) was very strange and just added to the confusion of the final showdown. A colleague reminded me recently of the famous Chekov quote, “Don’t use a gun (in theatre) if you don’t know what you’re going to do with it.”

In this case not only did Stone not know what he was doing with the gun, he didn’t know what he was doing with the script.

Whitney Fitzsimmons

Photographer: Brett Boardmn

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