Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 15 May 2018

Another Hamlet - could this be possible after two visits to the excellent Almeida production last year? Fortunately the play is almost inexhaustible, and even though this is the third production I have seen performed at Shakespeare's Globe, I agreed to the suggestion of some friends visiting from Australia who wanted to see it and to experience this special theatre.

Federay Holmes and Elle While are directing a company performing both Hamlet and As You Like It concurrently, aware that they are two plays newly written for the original Globe within a year of each other. There is considerable 'gender-blind' casting, in this case with Hamlet, Horatio and Laertes played by women - Michelle Terry, Catrin Aaron and Bettrys Jones respectively - and (perhaps more unusually) Ophelia played by a man - Shubham Saraf, who also takes the small part of Osric. Claudius (James Garnon), Gertrude (Helen Schlesinger), Polonius (Richard Katz) and other parts are more predictably cast, though interestingly Guildenstern (Nadia Nadarajah) signs in BSL while Rosencrantz (Pearce Quigley) takes on all the speaking lines of the pair, signing to his friend to clear up the no doubt fumbling attempts of the Danish courtiers to sign for themselves.

From all this, it can be seen that this is an unusual production. Yet many aspects of the performance derive from Shakespearean performance practice, so far as it can be known. Costumes are a curious mixture of period garb, including really elegant dresses for Ophelia (while sane) and Gertrude, and modern casual wear - the Players arrive in tee-shirts and jeans; this is a nod to the Elizabethan practice of actors owning their costumes and having little or no sense of anachronism, but the weaponry is restricted to swords, rapiers and daggers. The acting style has been developed to suit the special features of the Globe - open-air, leading to declamatory speaking, and awash with light (especially at the start of a fine spring evening), requiring the actors to move and gesture in ways that help the audience to focus their attention appropriately. This is particularly tricky in the opening scene, set nominally at midnight with the appearance of a ghost, but one quickly adjusts to the convention when the Horatio and the guards so plainly do not 'see' how the ghost leaves the stage. Only the occasional cacophony of a hovering helicopter entirely defeated the actors' efforts to remain audible, though these interruptions were cleverly co-opted by both Hamlet ('do you see yon cloud, sir?') and Ophelia in her mad scene. However, I am greatly relieved that the new management (under Michelle Terry) has eschewed the use of microphone augmentation.

The whole atmosphere of the Globe militates against the sort of intimate encounter with the characters that a smaller indoor space encourages: this is in a way a more 'barnstorming' approach by virtue of necessity. It is harder to become deeply involved with the inner life of even so self-probing a character as Hamlet but it is, by contrast, easier to appreciate the headlong sweep of the action as scene succeeds scene and the actors take confident possession of the wide sweep of the stage. Some decisions were less integrated than others - Hamlet's bizarre clothing while playing mad - a tatty white clown costume with white face and red lips - was distracting rather than insightful; and the very brief appearance of Fortinbras without Hamlet's discussion of the futility of war and his 'how all occasions' soliloquy was almost meaningless.

All in all, however, this was an engaging production in which Michelle Terry, taking on one of the greatest roles in her inaugural tenure as artistic director of the theatre, shows herself at her best: confident, articulate, eager to explore new possibilities for this wonderful venue.