I have a long, storied history with Shakespeare's Hamlet. It is one of my three favorite plays of all time (along with Tony Kushner's Angels in America and Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman), and I remember being so completely absorbed by it the first time I read it in college. I even wrote my graduate thesis on Ophelia. I've studied and explicated line after line, I've read tons of criticism about it, and I am incredibly protective of the material. It's the play I've seen the most productions of, and I have a lot of opinions on how I want my Hamlet.
I traveled down to Washington DC to see Michael Kahn's production at the Shakespeare Theatre Company this past weekend. I needed to see Michael Urie in the role. Urie and I, well, we also have a long and storied history. Bottom line is, I've come to realize he is one of the most talented actors working today, and just the idea of him as the prince of Denmark made me so so excited.
For the most part, Urie delivers. His characterization is calculated, and fully in control of his apparent "madness," which is exactly how I love my Hamlets. I've never believed Hamlet went mad anyway. However, the only time this becomes an issue is the most famous moment in not just the play but all of western literature, the "to be or not to be" soliloquy. I didn't believe for one moment that Urie's Hamlet would even contemplate suicide. He delivers the monologue beautifully but it feels out of place in this production. Urie nails the revenge aspects of the character, and develops strong relationships with both Gertrude and Ophelia (the strongest I think I've seen perhaps) but doesn't quite convince us of the man's existential turmoil. But his Hamlet is sufficiently obnoxious, and always seems to be in control of the situation. Yes, he chews the scenery a bit (he should; Hamlet is written as a brat) but he's also funny. The comedy is sufficient. (Unlike Sam Gold's version that played at The Public this past summer. Who knew Hamlet was a slapstick comedy!?)
The appeal of directing Shakespeare is to put your own spin on it, to adapt, to not just create a production set in the sixteenth century. This doesn't always work (i.e. Sam Gold's Hamlet). Remember: the play is the thing. Michael Kahn's take on it, which sees Denmark as a fascist stage and Elsinore as a sterile office building surrounded by surveillance cameras. King Hamlet is a ghost that appears on closed circuit monitors. Claudius and Polonious listen with huge headphones as Ophelia's bugged Bible records her conversation with Hamlet. Hamlet and Ophelia send texts. Hamlet records Claudius' reaction to The Mousetrap on his phone. This is a valid interpretation; all of this spying and meddling would drive Hamlet's madness, his paranoia. Is every moment a machination or someone or something else? Kahn's production makes it clear that he (of course) has an incredible grasp on the material, unlike I've seen in other stagings. (I don't agree with the fascist angle; there's nothing in the text that even supports this. It just feels like a way to shoehorn in "timely" aspects. Not everything has to connect to current events.) The only problem with updating Hamlet is there are still moments in the text that no director has found a way around. Sure, Polonious reads Ophelia's texts from Hamlet in act one, but later in the play she hands Hamlet back his written correspondence. Are we to believe he's also writing her physical love letters? And no matter what you do to the first four acts, there's no way around the ending. There must be a fencing duel. But sometimes, such as in this production, it feels out of place. I didn't quite believe this Hamlet would be into fencing at all. But the ending is the ending, so we must believe that sometime somewhere, Hamlet took fencing lessons.
I will say though, this was one of the most excellently paced productions of the play I've ever seen. It was only 3:15 (some of the cuts seemed excessive but I will never be happy with cuts made to the text; however, putting a comedic scene with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern right after "to be or not to be" and moving the following interaction with Ophelia seemed really, really egregious.)
But again, the play is the thing. And at the core of every production of Hamlet, no matter how successful or misguided, is that glorious, glorious text.
I traveled down to Washington DC to see Michael Kahn's production at the Shakespeare Theatre Company this past weekend. I needed to see Michael Urie in the role. Urie and I, well, we also have a long and storied history. Bottom line is, I've come to realize he is one of the most talented actors working today, and just the idea of him as the prince of Denmark made me so so excited.
For the most part, Urie delivers. His characterization is calculated, and fully in control of his apparent "madness," which is exactly how I love my Hamlets. I've never believed Hamlet went mad anyway. However, the only time this becomes an issue is the most famous moment in not just the play but all of western literature, the "to be or not to be" soliloquy. I didn't believe for one moment that Urie's Hamlet would even contemplate suicide. He delivers the monologue beautifully but it feels out of place in this production. Urie nails the revenge aspects of the character, and develops strong relationships with both Gertrude and Ophelia (the strongest I think I've seen perhaps) but doesn't quite convince us of the man's existential turmoil. But his Hamlet is sufficiently obnoxious, and always seems to be in control of the situation. Yes, he chews the scenery a bit (he should; Hamlet is written as a brat) but he's also funny. The comedy is sufficient. (Unlike Sam Gold's version that played at The Public this past summer. Who knew Hamlet was a slapstick comedy!?)
The appeal of directing Shakespeare is to put your own spin on it, to adapt, to not just create a production set in the sixteenth century. This doesn't always work (i.e. Sam Gold's Hamlet). Remember: the play is the thing. Michael Kahn's take on it, which sees Denmark as a fascist stage and Elsinore as a sterile office building surrounded by surveillance cameras. King Hamlet is a ghost that appears on closed circuit monitors. Claudius and Polonious listen with huge headphones as Ophelia's bugged Bible records her conversation with Hamlet. Hamlet and Ophelia send texts. Hamlet records Claudius' reaction to The Mousetrap on his phone. This is a valid interpretation; all of this spying and meddling would drive Hamlet's madness, his paranoia. Is every moment a machination or someone or something else? Kahn's production makes it clear that he (of course) has an incredible grasp on the material, unlike I've seen in other stagings. (I don't agree with the fascist angle; there's nothing in the text that even supports this. It just feels like a way to shoehorn in "timely" aspects. Not everything has to connect to current events.) The only problem with updating Hamlet is there are still moments in the text that no director has found a way around. Sure, Polonious reads Ophelia's texts from Hamlet in act one, but later in the play she hands Hamlet back his written correspondence. Are we to believe he's also writing her physical love letters? And no matter what you do to the first four acts, there's no way around the ending. There must be a fencing duel. But sometimes, such as in this production, it feels out of place. I didn't quite believe this Hamlet would be into fencing at all. But the ending is the ending, so we must believe that sometime somewhere, Hamlet took fencing lessons.
I will say though, this was one of the most excellently paced productions of the play I've ever seen. It was only 3:15 (some of the cuts seemed excessive but I will never be happy with cuts made to the text; however, putting a comedic scene with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern right after "to be or not to be" and moving the following interaction with Ophelia seemed really, really egregious.)
But again, the play is the thing. And at the core of every production of Hamlet, no matter how successful or misguided, is that glorious, glorious text.
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