by William Shakespeare
seen at Trinity Church Guildford on 16 Febraury 2022
The Guildford Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet, performed in the Holy Trinity Church in the town's High Street, is directed by Tom Littler and features Freddie Fox in the title role with Noel White as Claudius, Karen Ascoe as Gertrude, Stefan Bednarczyk as Polonius, Daniel Burke as Laertes, Rosalind Ford as Ophelia, Pepter Lunkuse as Horatio, Sarah Gobran as Fortinbras and the members of the company doubling in other roles, with Edward Fox's voice as the Ghost of Hamlet's father.
Inevitably the text is cut to allow for just under three hours of performing time, and it is always interesting to see which of the ostensibly dispensable facets of the full text the director has chosen to retain. In this case director Tom Littler has made the politico-military sub-plot following the manouevres of Fortinbras one of the major threads of the production, while the extensive interactions of Hamlet with the players are necessarily truncated as only one player is present to give the vital Hecuba speech and there is no discussion of introducing new text to the Mouse Trap play. The dumb show of the Murder of Gonzago, imagined to be taking place in the real audience's space, is enough to scandalise Claudius. The abbreviations to the text, and the necessary culling of minor characters to enable the small supporting cast to double the parts, was intelligently managed.
The space and acoustics of the church provided an excellent environment for both the scenes at the court and the destabilising atmosphere on the battlements where the ghost 'appears'. With unostentatious modern dress the guards could deploy battery torches, the sharp white gleams piercing misty air as the characters tried desperately to pin down the apparition. Elsewhere pistols were in evidence - Hamlet shot Polonius at some distance - but rapiers were still essential for the final duel between Hamlet and Laertes. Though the gravedigger was digging a grave, it was only for an urn containing Ophelia's ashes.
Everything depends on Hamlet, and in Freddie Fox we had an engaging but troubled prince, taken to drink in his grief but soon shaking it off as he faces the challenge of revenge, and then by turns witty, sardonic, impassioned, and distraught, speaking the verse with a beguiling confidence and intelligence. The dynamic between Gertrude and Claudius seemed to be barely simmering in contrast to the prince's instinctive revulsion at his mother's actions, but the tensions in Polonius's family were nicely displayed in the scene of Laertes's departure, Polonius's sanctimony being given the added fillip of a clerical collar in a nod to the physical setting in a church. Ophelia's naive humanity was underscored by her facility in playing a cello, poignantly abandoned as she later descended into madness.
This was a stimulating production in an unusual but, as it turned out, entirely appropriate space.
