Stratford: Hamlet - a production of the head

"Think, Hamlet, think": Ben Carlson as Hamlet, Photo: David Hou

There have been as many versions and interpretations of Hamlet as there have been people who’ve seen it. Directors in China, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Poland have drawn on the work’s subtexts to make political statements, and actors of all backgrounds –from classically-trained to Hollywood types –tend to see the role as the Holy Grail of acting.

Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, Ethan Hawke, Mel Gibson, Ralph Fiennes and Keanu Reeves have all tackled the role. Actor and musician Raoul Bheneja created a one-man version that has played Broadway and traveled the international theatre circuit. Soulpepper’s Albert Schultz took a turn as the glum Prince in a remounted 2005 production, and last year, Toronto company Why Not Theatre re-envisioned the work as The Prince Hamlet, reducing the dialogue and running it without intermission. This weekend sees the release of Hamlet 2, a spoof featuring Britain’s Steve Coogan as a theatre teacher. Culturally, Hamlet is rather ubiquitous, with many different interpretations, visions, and debates since the play’s 1601 premiere.

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has its own history of producing the play, with Richard Monette, Stephen Ouimette, Colm Feore and Paul Gross having tread the boards as the melancholy Dane. Now it’s actor Ben Carlson’s turn. Carlson, who already tackled the role at the Chicago Shakespeare Festival, is known for work at the Shaw Festival, where, among other roles, he played the probing John Tanner, in Man and Superman two seasons ago. He brings the same deep intelligence to Hamlet as he did to Tanner, imbuing the brooding Prince with an undeniably intellectual mind, though at the expense of a softer heart. Adrian Noble, the former head of the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, has crafted a visually arresting production that embraces the militarism of its Edwardian setting. He’s engineered his Hamlet to be timely, as well as timeless: epic, and yet intimate. This ambitiousness does not come without deep thought, but it comes at the expense of sensitivity to the material. By Hamlet’s end, there is a feeling that the lead character hasn’t made the sort of emotional journey the material demands.

Narratively, Hamlet isn’t complicated: upon learning of his father’s murder at the hands of his uncle, who is now married to his mother, Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, is consumed with rage and remorse, but seems incapable of taking revenge, and spends much of the play delivering soliloquies on the nature of choice, fate, existence, and mortality. The play is set against the backdrop of an invading Norwegian army, and Noble draws heavily upon this threat to underline Hamlet’s inaction. The play opens with a solemn visitation from the deceased King (James Blendick), followed by a celebratory introduction to Elsinore, complete with a sumptuous dance number (courtesy of choreographer Nicola Pantin) and a decorated Christmas tree. Claudius (Scott Wentworth) and Gertrude (Maria Ricossa) are portrayed with a noticeable degree of mutual sexual magnetism that lends their connection an extra credibility. Hamlet’s entrance provides a stark contrast to the proceedings; amidst this vivid celebration of birth, is a stubborn tribute to death. It’s a contrast that becomes more marked as the play progresses.

Santo Loquasto’s elegant design reflects this divide, contrasting colours, shades, and shapes. Flashlights and spotlights are sometimes the sole source of lighting effect in the expansive Festival theatre, but it lends a wonderful intimacy to the grey-blue world of Elsinore. Music is equally important, with Claudio Vena’s hauntingly simple piano tunes recalling Michael Nyman and Eric Satie. The costuming reveals a highly ordered world, with Polonius (Geraint Wyn-Davies) in formal three-piece tweed attire, his daughter Ophelia (Adrienne Gould) in virginal, flouncy white, and Hamlet looking every bit the spoiled royal in dark sweater and formal slacks. He delivers his “quintessence of dust” soliloquy in a café setting, implying the contents of this Princely mind are respected in the outer world, even if they’re deeply mistrusted at court, where military uniforms (however decorative) are the order of the day.

Denmark is shown as having all the trappings of militarism, but none of the aggressive ambition of the grey-coated Norwegians. The Players are given a flashy introduction, with the colourful group hopping off of an antique-style mini-truck in a torrent of tassles and tailcoats. Here Carlson shows his character’s playful side, as he excitedly interacts with the Player King (Victor Ertmanis). The role of theatre is underlined when, following their introduction, Hamlet delivers a soliloquy questioning his lack of resolution (“Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I”) alone on the wooden, tilted stage; with just a spotlight, he points directly at audience members, asking, “who calls me coward?”, and in so doing, skips between the world of stage and theatre. This meta-drama occurs again within the play itself, during the famous “Murder of Gonzago” scene, where instead of observing, Hamlet is actually on the makeshift stage, sharing the simple antique-style floodlight with the actors. He sees theatre as more than mere spectacle, perhaps reflecting Noble’s sentiments about the role of theatre, too. It’s all very brainy, but that doesn’t mean it ought not be emotionally engaging as well.

Emotional engagement would, after all, lend a sense of journey to the audience in terms of Hamlet’s arc from grieving boy to avenged man. “To be or not to be” is performed at the edge of the pointed, diamond-shaped stage, again implying a hovering between the world of performance and the world of audience, acting as both observed and observer, alive, dead, and wandering ponderously between. It’s compelling on an intellectual level, but we’re never fully let in on his emotional turmoil, or indeed, allowed to witness any kind of shift in his being, even after he returns to Denmark following his high seas adventure, which he shares with friend Horatio (Tom Rooney) before coming across the skull of Yorrick. While debating the issues of mortality, there is little if any change in him from the play’s start to this point; he’s still angry, petulant, and hostile.

Hamlet’s relationships with women provide little insight into his character either.  Ophelia (Adrienne Gould) is caught in a perpetual girlhood, dependent on both her brother Laertes (Bruce Godfree) and father Polonius for approval. Though there’s some kind of connection between she and Hamlet (glimpsed at when she attempts to return his letters), we’re never let in on its nature. Her descent into madness is yawningly predictable. By the time Hamlet leaps into her grave, it seems less passionate than mechanical. His relationship with Gertrude is equally oblique; he’s angry and disgusted with his mother, but little else. Although there’s no Oedipal subtext, he does straddle his mother at one point in (surprise) a fit of rage - more, we suspect, out of a need to be listened to than some lurking sexual fascination. One suspects Hamlet is a bit of a prude in Noble’s vision, but since there are no indications of the role sexuality and desire play in Hamlet’s life or life’s journey, we can only wonder.

Hamlet, the play and the character, are timeless for the ideas explored and the level of intellectual terrain that’s covered. Noble’s decision to place the play within the context of the Edwardian era adds another dimension of oncoming doom onto the already tragic nature of the proceedings. He gets good performances from his actors as well, with Scott Wentworth as a conflicted, guilty Claudius, and Geraint Wyn-Davies as a warm, genuinely concerned Polonius. But ultimately, this is the Danish Prince’s show. Presented as a committed intellectual, Carlson gives us the sense that, even without the ghostly visitation of his deceased father, he’d probably still ask universal questions about the meaning of life with strangers in cafes. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t “sound the depths” of human experience for either him, or for the audience. There’s precious little in the way of emotional response to the material, much less in establishing relationships between characters. Amidst the philosophizing and deducing, he remains exactly the same, from start to finish. Carlson, and indeed, his director, lose not only “the name of action”, but the link that binds character and audience together. This is definitely a Hamlet of the head, not the heart, which, depending on your view of what Hamlet should or shouldn’t be, is either deeply thrilling or deeply, if wondrously, hollow.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare; Directed by Adrian Noble; Festival Theatre, Stratford Shakespeare Festival; Closes: Oct 26. For more information, please go here.

This article originally appeared in the new theatre review

By Catherine Kustanczy