Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 8 March 2017

Hamlet again - the fifth since I started this blog, and I think the twentieth stage production I have seen (plus three films). This time, Robert Icke directs Andrew Scott as Hamlet, Juliet Stevenson as Gertrude, Angus Wright as Claudius, Jessica Brown Findlay as Ophelia, Peter Wight as Polonius, Luke Thompson as Laertes, David Rintoul as the Ghost and the Player-King and Elliot Barnes-Worrell as Horatio, with sets and costumes designed by Hildegard Bechtler.

A modern Hamlet with video surveillance cameras first alerting the guards to the Ghost's appearance, TV newsreel footage of the old king's funeral at the beginning, and Hamlet's at the end (a really nice touch to have the running text at the foot of the screen in Danish), and a camera always ready to film coverage of public royal occasions such as the beginning of the marriage feast, the Royal party attending the play and the fencing match, and Claudius making various public announcements. 

A long Hamlet, almost four hours, with little of significance cut from the full text - I noticed only no insistence by the Ghost that Hamlet's associates should swear the oath of secrecy; some reductions to the conversations with the Players (especially about the Boys' Companies); no second gravedigger (almost eliminating the comic dialogue of that scene) and no Osric to invite Hamlet to the fencing wager, the scene becoming much more streamlined in the hands of a colourless court functionary.

Nevertheless, one of the greatest Hamlets I have seen, full of rich nuances and thoughtful details. With such a lengthy performance there is time for all sorts of things to assume significance and depth - time to make a more pointed contrast between the way Hamlet confides in Horatio but merely becomes exasperated with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; time to give the latter two more anguish and anger at the way they are manipulated by the King and the Queen as much as by the Prince; time to allow the wider political scene (the Fortinbras episodes) some space to develop; time to see how Laertes, fundamentally a decent young man, is corrupted by rage and yet almost changes his mind (but at the last, does not); time to witness the full horror of Ophelia's destruction; time above all to take in Hamlet's predicament and his wide-ranging reflections.

Andrew Scott gives a memorable performance, starting with deep misery, wiping the tears from his eyes as he is reprimanded for grieving too much, moving through confusion, anger, self disgust, panic, delight, rash action, studied thought, to a rueful readiness for any eventuality, with a wonderful command of his voice and body, switching moods at a moment's notice often to startling effect. It helps enormously that the theatre space is so intimate, as this allows the real subtlety of his interpretation to shine forth almost as a conversation among friends. In a bold move, he is present hiding behind a sofa when Polonius instructs Ophelia to rebuff him, so from the beginning that relationship is poisoned for him - hardly surprising that he berates her so cruelly when she tries to return his letters. This sets the tone for him, that there is really no-one he can trust except Horatio; his feeling of entrapment is entirely plausible.

The supporting cast is also excellent - Gertrude and Claudius besotted with one another; Gertrude indeed being physically demonstrative towards a number of the courtiers as well in a sort of heedless mixture of flirtatiousness and regal condescension, while Claudius is otherwise very correct. Perhaps the only weak moment occurs when Hamlet appears to confront Claudius directly just after the fiasco of the play: they are facing each other, Hamlet with gun in hand and Claudius almost inviting him to shoot. It is perhaps too strange a moment to be entirely successful (the usual idea is that Claudius is not aware of Hamlet's presence).

Laertes, Ophelia and Polonius make a convincing family, the children obedient but also rather indulgently putting up with their father's pomposity. Ophelia's madness is harrowing because rather than being somewhat fey it is full of rage and despair - in her first appearance after Polonius's death she is strapped into a wheelchair, perhaps even medicated. It is a very uncomfortable sight.

After the final catastrophe, in an unusual interpolation, the already dead characters are seen slowly moving in the rear space of the stage. The Ghost stands sentinel, and first Laertes stands and goes to meet his sister and father, then Gertrude rises and meets her first husband; Claudius follows. There is an enigmatic tableau between the two brothers, the woman they both married, and the dying prince, before the older characters retreat into whatever afterlife is being hinted at, and Hamlet finally collapses as Horatio rushes to help him. Fortinbras, only ever a presence on the video screens in this production, delivers the final, somewhat ill-fitting eulogy, after which the rest is indeed silence.

I think, on balance, that I prefer Hamlet in a smaller space. All the introspection can be too easily dwarfed by a large (and possibly too distant) stage, the delivery necessarily less intimate simply because of the need to project. Here, as at the Trafalgar Studios, and as at the very first production I saw at the original Nimrod Theatre in Sydney in the early 1970s, one feels more closely confided in, and the experience of seeing such a familiar play can nevertheless still be intensely moving.