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| HAMLET REVIEW - BY DERYN CORNER |
David Tennant > Reviews > Biography > Career > Facts > Fan address > Quotes> Style Guide Hamlet by William Shakespeare
I’m not a Shakespeare scholar, in fact when I was at school he’d
only just finished writing the plays! That doesn’t mean I’ve never
read them or know what they are about – over the years I’ve read
a few, seen a few on TV and film and even managed to see a few live
but Hamlet has never been amongst them….of course I know what it
is about, everybody does and pretty much everybody can quote (or
more usually misquote) from at least one of his famous soliloquies,
so a chance to see it live… and with my favourite actor (and a pretty
good supporting cast too) …how Well I couldn’t…could I? I had already got a ticket for later in the run and so was sure of getting to see it and on the strength of that I decided that I probably needed to brush up on my Hamlet and so I asked for a copy for Christmas and got one… in fact what I got was a study text…you know like a Shakespeare scholar would use and please refer to my opening line to try and imagine how quizzically I looked at it on Christmas morning! But I sat down and diligently read the play from start to finish, taking my time and reading all the notes that were in the text that were supposed to help you understand what Shakespeare was on about...and you know what when I eventually finished the play I don’t think I was any the wiser! I followed that up with The BBC Version of the play – which I chose
because it had Patrick Stewart in the role of Claudius (which of
course he reprises in Stratford). It was made over 20 years ago and
Patrick and The BBC were very earnest in their interpretation of
the play… all codpieces, cloaks and crowns.. minimal staging and
hardly any money spent on lighting!! And …yep… you’ve guessed it
after 3 hours of drama I think all I had was a headache!! Not to be deterred I decided to give the play one more reading before I went to see it and I stayed up late every night last week and read and read until I finally got it finished. Now I would be as well prepared as I could be to fully understand every nuance of every performance. Bring on…Hamlet the Dane...I’m READY!!! I’m not going to sit and bore you all with a scene by scene break down of who did what and why… although if anybody wants that kind of a review I know where there is an excellent one to be had, I think I’ll just do what JANSKY did in her review and give you the highlights, the lowlights and some of my own thoughts on the production and the performances. Hamlet: Prince of Denmark “Old Hamlet, King of Denmark, has died and been succeeded by his brother, Claudius, who has also married Gertrude, the widowed Queen. Hamlet, Gertrude’s son, is already distressed by his father’s death and the hasty remarriage; when his father’s ghost appears to tell him that he was murdered by Claudius, Hamlet vows revenge. To cover his intentions, he feigns madness. Polonius, chief counsellor to the court, whose daughter Ophelia is all but betrothed to Hamlet, believes that his madness is caused by repressed love. Spied on by Polonius and Claudius Hamlet encounters Ophelia and violently rejects her. A company of players arrives and Hamlet asks them to perform a play, hoping that its similarity to the murder of his own father will force Claudius to betray his guilt. Hamlet’s suspicions are confirmed. He visits his mother, reviling her for her hasty marriage and accidentally kills Polonius. Claudius sends Hamlet to England planning to have him murdered. Laertes, Polonius’ son, demands revenge for his father’s death. His sister, Ophelia, maddened by grief, has drowned herself. Hamlet returns and confronts Laertes at her funeral. Claudius, meanwhile, has plotted with Laertes to kill Hamlet in a fencing match in which Laertes will have a poisoned sword. The plot miscarries and Laertes dies. Gertrude drinks from a poisoned cup intended for Hamlet and also dies. Hamlet, wounded by the poisoned sword, kills Claudius before he, too, dies.” Sounds like a bundle of laughs doesn’t it? Anybody who has read any of the newspaper reviews of the play will
know that the Director, Gregory Doran, has come in for some criticism
over the cuts he has made to the play and also for the fact that
he has reordered some of the scenes – most notably the famous ‘To
be or not to be’ soliloquy which has been moved forward quite a way. In most cases his changes didn’t detract from the play but I felt that because he had cut the final scene short by not introducing Fortinbras he should also have cut the scene where Hamlet meets Fortinbras’ army on their way to war. If he isn’t going to be in the final scene then we don’t really need to know he is using Denmark as a way to get to where he is going. Although if they had cut this scene I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of David walking right past me on his way to the stage for this scene (I was on an aisle but not one used for entrances and exits). Another of Doran’s changes has Hamlet killing Polonius with a gun
that he finds in his mother’s bedside drawer and the ensuing effect
of the mirrored glass shattering is one the best of the night. Quite
why Gertrude feels the need for a gun is a question I might have
to put to the cast and director at the talk back night. I’m not so
sure about the gun myself – it seems to emphasise the fact that there
are certain areas within this play where Doran can’t decide if he
wants to be modern (the watchmen have rifles and nightsticks) or
traditional (Hamlet and Laertes still fight The final change is only minor and involves the manner of Claudius death. In the play Hamlet wounds him with the poisoned sword and then forces him to drink from the remains of the poisoned cup. Now Claudius, almost resignedly accepts his fate, maybe he is secretly glad to be rid of the burden of killing his own brother, and drinks freely from the cup. I liked this ending better – it suits Claudius to be in control right up to the choice of how he dies. I know that Shakespeare wouldn’t have factored in anywhere to have
an intermission when he wrote the play but today’s audiences, I think,
demand a break and so no matter where you put it, it is never going
to be right. I think that Doran did a fairly good job with his choice
of putting it in the middle of the scene where Hamlet finds Claudius
at prayer and wonders if he should kill him there and then. David’s performance at this stage is top notch and there is just enough of a glint in his eye and steel in his voice to make you think that maybe, just maybe, he might kill him! The staging & costumes: The stage is on one level and not very big, although the space was made to feel larger by the use of floor to ceiling length mirrored panels at the back of the stage. The only down side with this was just occasionally you could see all the audience reflected in the mirrors. I had a seat in the stall on row J next to an aisle and was pretty much straight in front of the stage. The lights dimmed and the play started.. and for a long while nobody said anything as the strode around the stage set illuminating the darkness with torches and you could have heard a pin drop, such was the anticipation and expectation amongst the audience. Then the first words are spoken….”Who’s there?” and before you know it you’ve sat through three and a half hours of Shakespeare and if you are anything like me you’ll wonder just where the time went. Quite often the stage is left bare of props giving the actors room to move around and express themselves. When props are used they are well used, especially by David who clambers over some of the sets like a man possessed – which of course Hamlet is…or is he? The theatre is wooden backed on the lower level with a corridor that runs all around the back; this allows both the audience to get to their seats and the actors to move around the stage after having made their exit. The only problem I found was at times the heavy footed running of members of the cast (and David was one of the main culprits here) as they ran to get to their entrance point was quite loud and a little off putting. By now everybody knows that the director has chosen to avoid the ‘classic’ Shakespeare mode of dress (although I wouldn’t have minded seeing David in tights!!) and gone for a contemporary look. For me this really worked too, it seemed somehow to take some of the hard work out of getting a grip on what was happening. I’m sure the purists hate it but I’m not a purist. In David’s opening scene he is wearing a dark business suit, shirt and tie with his hair calmly slicked into place, the epitome of the dutifully mourning son. He stays dressed like this until he meets the ghost of his father when he tops the outfit with a long dark coat similar (if not the same as) the one depicted on the initial publicity shot. By the time we get to the ‘To be…’ speech it is obvious that Hamlet has begun a slow descent into ‘madness’ and his choice of jeans and a red t shirt with bare feet and rumpled hair suit the troubled and disaffected young man. Forced back to the court by his desire to see his Uncle exposed
for the murderer that Hamlet now knows he is he dons a black tuxedo
and bow tie but as an act, I believe, of his still rebellious nature
continues to prowl the stage with bare feet. The rest of the cast
are also suitably dressed for a night of performance – the men in
tuxedos and the women in long evening gowns. The ‘play within a play’
allows for some extravagant and wildly OOT costumes On his return to Denmark he wears the now well discussed parka and woolly hat outfit. Poor David must have been pretty warm in that too! Drawn into the fatal fight with Laertes the jumper goes and is replaces by a vest and pale shirt over which he eventually dons a fencing vest. All the other members of the company had costumes that fitted the mood set by the main protagonists, Hamlet, Claudius and Laertes with the notable exception of the King’s personal guards who had costumes that to me seemed old fashioned, all shining breastplates and tall helmets with plumes. This seemed especially at odds with the portrayal of Fortinbras and his army as a modern day SAS style outfit with uniforms to match. Maybe Claudius just likes the pomp and circumstance… after all he is the king! The performances: As you would expect from the RSC the entire company gave excellent performances, even those who had little to do or say did it well! The strongest of the major supporting roles were the excellent Oliver
Ford Davies as Polonius who played him as both a steadfast ally and
supporter of the king and also a doddery, slightly absent minded
father without blurring the lines between the two sides of his character. Peter De Jersey gave another standout performance as Hamlet’s closest friend Horatio. A man who maybe doesn’t fully understand all the machinations of a royal court but does understand that his friend is hurting and that all he can do is be there for him no matter what. As Hamlet lies dying in his arms he is so distraught he tries to drink the last dregs of the poison so as to die with his friend and Peter’s performance was enough for this writer to find tears in her eyes. Penny Downie gave a strong and realistic portrayal of Gertrude a woman torn between her love for her husband and the love for her son. The scene in which Hamlet confronts her in her chamber and demands to know what she knows of the old kings’ death is played superbly, with David a whirling dangerous dervish of demands and accusations and Penny looking for all the world like she truly believes her life is in danger. Now to the two leading men David and Patrick Stewart – and I’m probably not going to make any friends with my next comments but please remember it is only MY opinion. I’m sorry to say that David wasn’t the best actor in the play – for me that accolade goes to Patrick and I’ll tell you why I think that. Patrick is more powerful and authoritative, perhaps off the back
of his recent award nominated run in Macbeth, he captures your attention
with ease. Claudius is a man, who in my opinion would do anything
in the pursuit of his love for Gertrude, anything including the murder
of his own brother. Gaining a crown and a dominion being just an
added bonus to obtaining his ultimate goal and yet along with ruthlessness
he also has diplomacy and tact when he needs to. Patrick can slide
seemingly effortlessly through these character traits, commanding
the stage like it David suffers from being ‘stage rusty’ not at times having the power and expansiveness that are sometimes necessary on the stage. Facial expressions and ‘eyebrow acting’ don’t work if the back row of the circle can’t see what you are trying to express. There are also times when he needs to tone down Hamlet’s ‘madness’ just a little… too much rushing about, falling to his knees and hair pulling can get a little repetitive and he has more tools in his acting arsenal that he should call upon. I’m certain that as the run progresses and eventually ends up in
the West End that David’s performance will improve as he shakes off
the last vestiges of television acting and gets properly back into
stage acting. In Conclusion: For all those of you who are lucky enough to have tickets for any of the performances of Hamlet all I can say is you are in for a treat. A stellar cast, a modern twist and some of the best lines of literature ever written make for a truly memorable experience. This is Shakespeare made easy, easy on the eye, easy on the mind and for 3.5 hours surprisingly easy on the bum too! I will just add my own comments on the stage door experience at this point. It’s NOT good… I know that JANSKY was lucky and got an autograph but I just have a horrible feeling that before long somebody is going to get hurt. I went straight round after the performance and the crowd was 6 or 7 deep in places (I found out later that with half an hour to go BEFORE the performance finished it was 4 deep!) I managed to get up against a wall about 3 back from the front. David came out and there was a noticeable surge towards the barriers
and I ended up squashed between a wall and a bicycle – if I’d been
a child I could have been hurt. David didn’t spend long signing autographs
– and I have heard that sometimes NOBODY comes out to sign – he just
worked the front row and a couple of lucky ones from row 2 and went
back in…. now I don’t know if the fact that Russell T Davies and
Julie Gardner were in the audience meant that he spent less time
than he would do normally but I would say to anybody thinking about
it…
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