Hamlet is crammed with great acting. William Bozier’s graceful dance as the Player King provides a creative and elegant halftime counterpoint to all the squirrelly plotting and danger. Seagrove is a stately and nicely erotic target for the villainy, although her fight with Hamlet seems a little lopsided, McKellen being so many years her senior. Hyde is understated, chilly, and more than a match for the plum role of the piece’s villain. Steven Berkoff is stuffy and deliciously, constantly behind the curve as Polonius.
As for McKellen, he is brilliant. Still astonishingly limber, he brings home a thrilling, clear portrayal of a man driven frantic by his impossible obligations to a vapor. His wounded features and sharp wits bring equal measures of solemnity and impishness. McKellen no doubt has such qualities in his sleep, which complement this role perfectly.
“…crammed with great acting.”
Also of note is that this version is very concise. Over within two hours, it is a particularly swift telling of a complex plot and half the length of Kenneth Branagh’s epic cinematic retelling. It seemed particularly shrewd to excise the ghost’s first appearance, moving us straight into the heart of the action in the great hall and allowing Hamlet’s friends Rosenkrantz (Lee Knight) and Guildenstern (Asif Khan) to live again, as they are often the first victims of the cutting room floor in prior productions. The first battlements scene suddenly seems very expositional when removed, and it had me wondering why it isn’t pulled more often.
Despite the caliber of the cast and staging, the chief delight of Hamlet remains its language. There are stretches where every minute has a saying or aphorism you have no doubt found yourself uttering many times, usually without knowing the origin. The brevity of this production only emphasizes this. It feels like it is about to burst as it fizzes relentlessly with the most beautiful language put to page.
This Hamlet is a fine entry point into the text. It may not have the straightforward staging of Olivier, Zefferelli, or Branagh, but there is a pithiness here that cuts clean through the abstraction used to render this portrait. A man in tatters on a toilet floor is an image that doesn’t require any elucidation at all. In fact, the removal of sets and historicism puts the actors in a sort of vacuum, where every tic and hesitation looms larger. This lean production is a thrilling success.
"…a fine entry point into the text."
