FULL REVIEW
Hamlet by William Shakespeare, by Bell
Shakespeare
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne, July 15
to 25, 2015
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***
Any
company staging Shakespeare’s masterful tragedy, Hamlet, confronts an
intimidating history of exceptional productions, unhelpful comparisons, high expectations,
and the challenge of finding a novel interpretation of a play that has been
analysed to its last word.
Prince
Hamlet’s (Josh McConville) Denmark is a country riddled with
internal and external conflict, secrets and lies, the consequence being that no
one trusts anyone.
In
his production, director, Damien Ryan, pushes the boundaries of this inherent mistrust
and deception, depicting Denmark as a Stasi-like police state with its royal palace
of Elsinore littered with eavesdroppers, bugging devices and spies.
Hamlet’s character is intricate and his behaviour is
often illogical or contradictory, but his introspection, self-doubt, vanity,
intelligence and self-righteousness are catalysts for some of Shakespeare’s
most achingly beautiful speeches.
McConville
is unexpected casting for the role of Hamlet and his interpretation is often
surprising and offbeat, giving Hamlet the manner of a smart but scruffy street
brat rather than an entitled, rich brat.
He
is a feisty and unpredictable Hamlet who is often entertainingly impish and playful,
but his physical clowning undercuts the dramatic tension of scenes such as the
final, poisonous fencing match against Laertes (Michael Wahr).
It
appears that experiments that may have worked in rehearsal have interfered with
the meaning of the play and fail to illuminate the character, the result being
that McConville’s performance sometimes looks unbalanced or contrived.
Sean O’Shea is compelling and convincing as Claudius, a smiling
villain whose good cheer masks a private paranoia that he will be unseated from
his newly obtained throne.
Ryan
mines the play to find interesting subtext, introduces quirky, contemporary
references to engage the audience and establishes a sense of place by
intermittently inserting Danish language.
Some
unusual casting choices detract from the production; casting women as the soldiers
on the parapets (Julia Ohannessian, Catherine
Terracini) diminishes any sense of the collapse of male courage in the face of the
supernatural.
Making the Player King a woman (Terracini) changes his
camaraderie with Hamlet and, in the dramatic reenactment of Hamlet’s father’s
murder, it reduces the acerbic parody of Claudius and Gertrude (Doris Younane) and
the sexual tension between them.
Matilda
Ridgway plays Ophelia as a modern, opinionated girl with no apparent weakness
of mind but this makes her collapse into madness unlikely and ultimately unconvincing.
Although
the ghost scene is not spooky, the final scene is not tragic and Polonius’ (Philip
Dodd) murder looks like a scuffle, this production will appeal to an audience
that wants a new, capricious Hamlet that refuses to take its lead from past
interpretations.
By
Kate Herbert
Director
Damien Ryan
Hamlet
Josh McConville
Claudius
Sean O’Shea
Gertrude
Doris Younane
Ophelia
Matilda Ridgway
Polonius
Philip Dodd
Horatio
Ivan Donato
Laertes Michael Wahr
Rosencratz
/Reynaldo Robin Goldsworthy
Marcellus /Player Queen Julia Ohannessian
Player King /Bernardo Catherine Terracini
