Directed by Gregory Doran (who did my favourite version of The Winter’s Tale), this is in some ways a strong production. There are some interesting choices and there are some questionable choices. Let me gather my thoughts.
Firstly, it is set in modern day and there are CCTVs everywhere. Like Robert Icke later does in the 2018 version (with Andrew Scott), Gregory Doran also emphasises the surveillance theme of the play. Sometimes it works well, often it feels gimmicky, but I’m afraid that the CCTVs only create more questions: does it not get anyone’s attention that at some point Marcellus, Francisco, Barnardo, and Horatio run around in fear and wonder, clearly speaking to something unseen?
Secondly, I don’t like the casting of Patrick Stewart for both the Ghost and Claudius. Some of you may tell me that this doubling is nothing new and some reviewers have said it’s sometimes done, but why then does Hamlet ask Gertrude “Have you eyes?”? Why then does he say that Claudius is “no more like my father/ Than I to Hercules”? And more importantly, how are we to feel about Gertrude, if she moves on from her dead husband to his brother, who looks just like him? It’s interesting however that Patrick Stewart plays the Ghost as stiff and stern—cold even—indeed, what does it say about the relationship between Hamlet and his father that when the Ghost appears, there are no words of love, only calls for revenge? Hamlet has to avenge the murder of a father with whom he didn’t have a close, loving relationship.
Thirdly, I don’t like Patrick Stewart as Claudius. He softens the character. The production removes some of the more insulting lines in the wedding scene:
“KING It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled.”
(Act 1 scene 2)
Imagine how insulting these lines are to someone such as Hamlet. In front of the whole court! Claudius aims to sting and Shakespeare lets us see from the very first scene that he is cunning and subtle. But Gregory Doran cuts these lines, and Patrick Stewart’s performance as a whole softens the character. It is one thing to play Claudius as even-tempered, but is this really a man who murders his own brother, usurps the throne, marries his brother’s widow, sets others to spy on his nephew then plots to have him killed, takes advantage of a courtier’s death to manipulate the son into being his pawn, and so on? I don’t buy it.
Someone has called it a nuanced performance but I don’t think so—a nuanced performance is one that shows Claudius as a ruthless man but also a good king and an adoring husband—the best Claudius I have seen so far is Robert Shaw.
I do think David Tennant is very good as Hamlet however. The best Hamlet I have seen is still Kevin Kline, who conveys better something of “the sweet prince” that Hamlet once was, but David Tennant does convey very well the intensity and volatility and sardonic wit of the character, and also some vulnerability—it is much better than the performance of Andrew Scott, who plays Hamlet like a psychopath that anyone would want to remove from court.
Penny Downie is also very good as Gertrude, playing her as a tragic character, and I like Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius.
What about the ending?
“KING Gertrude, do not drink.
QUEEN I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.”
(Act 5 scene 2)
There are different ways of playing this moment. Gertrude may carelessly drink from the cup, too absorbed in the duel to notice. Or Gertrude may know the cup to be poisoned, and deliberately drink from it, as Juliet Stevenson does in the 2018 production. Or she may have a little pause, think, and then drink from it, which is what Penny Downie does here, and I think it works very well.
One interesting thing Patrick Stewart does, which I don’t see in other version of Hamlet, is that at the end he shrugs and drinks from the poisoned cup himself. It adds something tragic to the character. But at the same time, the consequence is that it makes Hamlet even more passive—for the entire story, Hamlet doesn’t take any action (apart from staging the play wherein he catches the conscience of the king), and at the very end, he only slashes at Claudius’s hand—admittedly the sword is envenomed, but he still appears less active as he hands over the cup to Claudius and the King drinks it himself.
Not the best rendition, but interesting and worth watching.
My daughter loves this version. However, she is also a huge Dr. Who fan (David Tennant is some incarnation of the Doctor). I’ve never seen it. I’ll show her this post and get her thoughts.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do find it intriguing to make the ghost and Claudius played by the same actor if only for this reason: it seems to me that Hamlet is at his most irrational when he’s comparing the two brothers — particularly in the famous scene in act 3 (“Look you now, what follows. Here is your husband: like a mildew’d ear,…”). Because obviously, as brothers they’re going to look pretty similar. So I assume here we are seeing Hamlet’s irrational bias, not reality. Making the actors the same would drive this home. I of course have no comment on the other aspects, as I have yet to see it.
I get that, but I think if the brothers look alike, it would make you see Gertrude differently.
DeleteLet me know what your daughter thinks.