Hamlet: Near, Far, Wherever You Are…Horatio
@ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon
The Hamlet I never knew I needed. Think Edwardians at Sea meet The Hunt For Red October and then Titanic. It’s thrilling stuff, though a lot of the lines and dramatic deaths get lost in a literal tumble at the end as everyone and everything slides down the deck. Hamlet (Luke Thallon) meanwhile makes like a sacrificial and bloody Kate Winslet on the sinking crest of the ship.
Venturing again to Stratford-Upon-Avon, only this time staying more in the centre, I made it more safely to the theatre. Still baffled by the street layout getting there, but atleast my street showed on the map outside the RSC to get back. And I didn’t have to walk through a posh though deserted retail park! I even managed to get a sense of oldey timey-wimey Shakespeare everywhere Stratford, where every wibbly-wobbly timbered building claims to be c1450 (even if it’s from…ahem.. the 1580’s or 1920’s).
In Rupert Goold’s version, the Danish court are enjoying a defensive, opulent life on the ocean wave. We start with a very Skyfall-ish funeral at sea, a flag draped coffin on what turns out to be a deck. We get a date in May and a countdown projected on digital screens behind the stage. We keep being shown the time throughout. Meanwhile, a wonderfully cinematic video montage shows us sea borne scenes, creating tremendous atmosphere and a real sense of movement. Even more impressive, the stage tilts (raked apparently) and moves and is partly surrounded by trays of water.
When we go down into the pumping engine rooms, we get steam, a deafening soundscape, video montage of the huge pistons in action and the dripping of water. Ominously, the dripping of water too — for after a while I twigged, we’re not on a submarine or a super warship in the 1910’s battle of the biggest warship building. It’s Titanic and the time countdown is a signifier to all things going horribly and tragically Pete Tong, along with the body count that Hamlet’s going to create.
The set tilts with the movement of the water and the wider cast create a sense of sparkling classy gaiety and then terror as they skitter about the ship trying to flee.
Luke Thallon’s Prince of Denmark was very much an intelligent student, we really got a sense of how much he loved Ophelia. We don’t see the ghost at first as it appears mistily on deck. He appears to be thinking out his speeches, as though he’s think-speaking in real time, so that his words stop and start. To begin with he seemed a bit flat and lack-lustre — however, this was a slow burning builder as he plunged into stagey and literal vengeance. He was most interesting in the confrontation with his mother, stabbing poor Ophelia’s father as he appeared from below deck. At times this Hamlet can be bitterly jovial, perhaps too much as the audience were often laughing at the really sad bits. Though he did do a nice line in turning rhetoric into an audience participation question at one point. ‘Am I a coward?’ ‘NO!’ an audience member shouted back.
In a nice touch, the ghost of Hamlet’s father and the First Player portraying the King were both portrayed by Anton Lesser. Causing a real jolting alarm in Hamlet as he encountered the Player — and no doubt unease in King Claudius (Jared Harris) and Queen Gertrude (Nancy Carroll). Channeling Queen Alexandra and Queen Maud, Gertrude was very sophisticated, even smoking aristocratically. However, we saw her concern for her son and anguish as he murdered Polonius, stunned as he smeared her with blood and ineffectually trying to remove it. Yet also wanting to protect him because he is her son. Equally we saw a villainous, murderous Claudius enraged to fury as Hamlet in a laissez-faire mode just couldn’t quite recall where he’d left the body. Sometimes Claudius’s prayer moment can be pitiable — here you felt he was probably worshipping himself, so full was he of his own glory.
We got less of a brooding prince here or one burdened by what the ghost of his father was asking him to enact and more someone working things out on his feet. Someone who grew increasingly appalled by his mother’s quick marriage to his uncle and apparent easy replacement of his father by another. Ophelia (Nia Towle) had more substance and strength here — uneasily used by her father Polonius to reel in her Prince. Guildenstern (Tadeo Martinez) and Rosencrantz (Chase Brown) were out of place as Americans in the Danish Court and one mistaken for the other. We didn’t really get the tragedy of their off-stage death. What was brought to the fore was Hamlet’s friendship with Horatio (Kel Matsena) and the despairing sense of what the revenge, the toll it was taking, on Hamlet himself. How he was having to act in ways he found distasteful to fulfill his father’s from beyond the grave wishes.
There was charming dancing and romantic gazing out to sea, before the wider cast were running about the sheerly upending deck, one pitiably clutching a baby in a shawl. Sadly the production did pedal the old myth of people being locked in below decks. At the same time, the Danes seem to make like the Astors and carry on regardless, ignoring the wider terror. Claudius manipulated Laertes (Lewis Shepherd) into duelling Hamlet using a poison tipped sword. Whilst also trying to off Hamlet with a poisoned drink — which Gertrude took, in a less obviously knowing manner than in some productions — where she obviously senses the plot and saves her son. Nor did this production play up the relationship between Polonius, Laertes and Ophelia nor between Laertes and Ophelia — Polonius (Elliot Levey) was jovial in a velvet suit, but less central to the action than in other productions I’ve seen.
However, it was all compelling once you realised what was happening. the ship they were on and how time was literally against them — a great concept for a life and death focused play. They even used the Yorrick speech in a really clever way and the players became Diaghilev Ballet Russes inspired modernists. (With terrific costumes and make-up).
The tilting deck and the pitifulness and horror of people falling into the sea was very powerful. I enjoyed the naval costumes and the way that the cast popped in and out of the deck, scuttling down to stairs below-deck when needed. The below-deck stairs gave Polonius more issues when he needed to hide in the shadows as he really couldn’t hide very well — and was murdered off-stage. However, they have Ophelia more scope as she ran up and down decks, in distraction and was ignobly buried following drowning by being tossed off the deck. Her ‘corpse’ did an undignified spin into the depths. Cast need to work on that — the deceased King got a much more dignified drop into the ‘ocean’.
The ending as everyone died and the ship horribly titled unnaturally upwards was impressive. However, the lines and actions did get swallowed in the spectacle — mostly because cast members were sliding off pronouncing their lines. Although, Hamlet and Laertes’ sword fight had vigour and muscle to it. Can’t remember seeing Fortinbras turning up to witness the carnage or to mount a rescue mission, (but he’s in the cast list, so presumably he was there). Nor did we get the sense of a wounded Hamlet’s tragic death at the end in quite the same way — he was more greeting/embracing death in a ‘My Heart Will Go On’ stance.
However, the concept and the spectacle and the cast are impressive — and it’s compelling horrifying stuff. The filmic backdrops and lighting were incredible as was the staging — and it had me weeping as I grasped their fate. (The tableaux struck by the wider cast at various points are very emotionally resonant and really pull the heart strings). The dismissive attitude of the royal family is also an interesting element of the drama.
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