Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 5 April 2016

Simon Godwin directs the RSC's first 'black' Hamlet with Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet, Tanya Moodie as Gertrude, Clarence Smith as Claudius, Cyril Nri as Polonius, Natalie Simpson as Ophelia and Hiran Abeysekera as Horatio. Only Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, even more out of their element than usual, were played by white actors as callow and tactless European visitors to Denmark re-imagined as an unspecific African state.

The play opened with an unexpected (but short) graduation scene at Wittenberg University, underscoring Hamlet's ease and popularity in an academic environment and establishing the friendship with Horatio. But then we were at the ramparts with the nervous soldiers, in a modern setting (camouflage dress and guns, erratic lighting in the sentry box). The stultifying Danish state with the "o'erhasty marriage" of Claudius and Gertrude was rendered more menacing by the trappings of military dictatorship as a function of factional politics.

The setting was oppressive; the Hamlet of Paapa Essiedu was compelling as an intelligent young man ill at ease with himself and his situation. He spoke the verse with absolute precision, and was rightly the linchpin of a very fine production, with an excellent supporting cast. At the beginning the royal pair Claudius and Gertrude seemed impervious and confidently in control, but the hollowness of his position and the personal awkwardness of her commitment to him was gradually revealed as the play progressed.

In Polonius we saw less of the mean-minded busybody, as the scene in which he authorises his servant to spy to the point of provocation on his son in Paris was almost entirely cut, and there was less steel and more complacency in his instructions to Ophelia; however, he remained a figure out of his depth. Ophelia herself was a stronger person in herself, and therefore her breakdown was rather more passionate than ethereal, an interpretation that was very well played.

The final duel was fought with pairs of sticks, in keeping with the Africa setting, as if it were the echo of tribal contests for honour and ascendancy, and it was a culmination of the consistently thought-through design of the whole production. Two further ideas served to instil a fresh view on this famous play. The interval occurred just at the point when Hamlet considers slaying Claudius while he is kneeling in prayer, so that the image at the interval blackout is of the prince holding a gun almost to the king's head. While this may seem melodramatic, there must be people in any audience who do not know what will happen next, and it was an arresting image. Then, at the end, as Hamlet died in his arms, Horatio uttered a wordless cry of such desolation that the entire enormity of loss was brought home even to those of us in the audience who have seen the play so often that its outcome is almost too familiar.

But, with a production of Hamlet as good as this, familiarity by no means breeds contempt. On the contrary, the play just continues to reveal new ideas and new shades of meaning as a new group of actors embody the characters.