Blog Post- Hamlet

Since I’ve made it a habit of only talking about plays that I disliked and harping on the parts about it that didn’t work, I see no reason in breaking with tradition. Today, I will be cruelly tearing apart The Globe Theatre’s production of Hamlet.

            Inarguably one of Shakespeare’s most iconic plays, one of the most talked about and dissected, one of the most performed and which has inspired countless adaptations and retellings, you would think the Globe’s new Artistic Director would handle this play carefully and with the utmost attention. Alas, this did not appear to be the case. Where to begin? The set design was nonexistent. Where this might at times be a bold move toward minimalism, here it felt more like a sloppy oversight toward confusion and even a bit of boredom. Not that a good play needs good set design, but invariably a good play is often improved by a good set design. The costuming was careless, while some characters like Claudius, Gertrude, and Ophelia to name a few were decked out in Elizabethan garb, other smaller characters, like the players most notably, were dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Hamlet was all over the place dressed at times in traditional clothes, then runs off to meet his father’s ghost wearing a pompom beanie pulled straight out of my own closet, spends much of the play dressed as the ghost of Heath Ledger’s joker, and then returns with slicked back hair and a modern fencing outfit.

            Weird aesthetic choices aside, this production of Hamlet was mostly disappointing due to the purposeful choice to kind of make Hamlet the villain? While Shakespeare has at times titled his plays after the least endearing character or characters, this isn’t usually thought of as necessarily one of those times. Personally, I have never like Hamlet or Hamlet long before this production, but the difference was that I usually don’t like Hamlet for his inability to make a decision and act on it, as well as his fixation with the sound of his own voice, this time I didn’t like Hamlet because of his petty vendetta against every single person around him regardless of whether or not they had something to with his father’s murder, as well as the completely not-cute-anymore childlike tantrum he appears to be throwing at the age of 30. How insane does a guy have to be to make an entire audience side with the man who murdered his father to become king? Ask Michelle Terry, she seems to know well. While you have her, please inquire as to why she recites Hamlet like it’s last period in high school and the bell is about to ring but the teacher said no one can leave until you finish your speech? Shakespeare is hard enough to understand without having notes in front of you, it’s nearly impossible when the person delivering it is talking like she has to pee but can’t until intermission.  

            I’m not even going to get into what the deal was with Ophelia not wearing a wig and looking very much like a man in a dress, even for the Globe, because I’m still not entirely sure what that was about. Maybe it was sexist, some weird attempt to make all of Ophelia’s good and sympathetic traits somehow masculine, while Hamlet’s bad traits are feminine? That would be a strange path to take by a female director. Or maybe it was transphobic, and an attempt at making a joke out of a man being dressed as a woman, which wouldn’t really make sense because the Globe does gender bending all of the time without it being a joke, but then again the world has done Hamlet many times without it being a joke. Gertrude also isn’t wearing a wig during Ophelia’s funeral, which is also an odd choice to make for a queen in mourning who proved she has a wig in her first scene, so perhaps the wig oversights are nothing more than that, and need no further understanding.

            What I will discuss is how amazing Claudius was in this production, showing up Hamlet in every way possible. When Hamlet doesn’t care about Polonius, and he doesn’t care about Gertrude, and he doesn’t care about Ophelia, and he doesn’t care about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and he doesn’t care about Laertes, and he doesn’t care about Denmark, and he doesn’t care about whether or not the audience is having a good time, Claudius does. Claudius killed his own brother to be king, he married his sister-in-law and he probably would have had Denmark taken over by Norway had things not happened the way they did, and yet he is still the most beloved character in this production. That’s when you know that you have failed as a director and as an actor at performing Hamlet.