Michelle Terry’s Hamlet
is perplexing, fast, and at times unintelligible. Hamlet is a play of introspection and brooding, which is not
properly explored in this newest rendition at the Globe Theatre. While Terry’s
artistic vision looks for a new way to present Hamlet, she instead gets lost in ambiguity and confusion.
Terry as Hamlet was unconvincing and unsympathetic. She
played him as legitimately insane and her fast-paced soliloquy contrasted with
the forlornness of the character and the thoughtfulness normally portrayed by
him. By contrast, King Claudius, played by James Garnon, was a character with
whom the audience could sympathize. He seemed sane and, with the removal of
specific scenes, as though he was a good ruler. This distinction was further
emphasized from a scene later in the play. The truly strange in this version is
the switch of sympathy from the tragic hero to the villain.
Of the rest of the casting Helen Schlesinger as Gertrude
portrayed a likeable queen, concerned about her son and truly in love with
Claudius. The relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet was also an interesting
point of contention, because Hamlet did not seem to care about his mother at
all. Since this version created an unsympathetic hamlet, the fact that Gertrude
defends his killing of Polonius is weird. Her relationship with Claudius is
also a point of contention, seeing as in many previous versions it is made
clear that she was coerced, whereas in this version it seemed as though
Gertrude actually chose to be with Claudius.
The staging of this play was also interesting. Most of the scenes
were staged between the pillars, which made it more difficult for those on the
sides to see what was happening. However, in some instances the staging did
work. In the scenes with the ghost the blocking worked, because the ghost would
go off in the direction that the other characters were not looking, which
helped emphasize that the character was a ghost. The issues with the ghost
mostly came across in the costuming of the character.
The ghosts costume did not indicate that the character was
supernatural in nature. The actor could have easily just been someone else,
because there was no make-up on his face, nor were his clothes in some disrepair
to indicate that he was dead. In addition, the rest of the costumes did not fit
well with the play either. Hamlet’s clown costume is confusing in its use and
added to the idea that Hamlet is actually crazy instead of just acting.
However, with the direction that Terry took Hamlet this costuming choice also
made him seem younger than he is in the written play.
The idea that Hamlet is an age similar to those in college
is furthered added to by the decision to cut some of the lines. In particular,
the line where Hamlet mentions his age is cut from this version, which creates
a sense that he is much younger than he was written. This youngness of the
character made the audience’s dislike of him greater, because he seemed like a
brat.
The choices the two directors made with the staging ended up
not working well for this play. The idea that the actors could add their
comments worked better with As You Like
It because it is already somewhat chaotic. In Hamlet this idea did not work well because this play requires more
of a guiding hand. This might have something to do with the genres of the plays
themselves. Since Hamlet is a tragedy,
the down fall needs to be clear and the scenes where the tragedy could turn
around need to show up as turning points that could have occurred. That is
where this version failed.
The Hamlet
currently at the Globe is not worth the ticket to stand in the yard or any
ticket to see. However, is so wished the ticket link and information can be
found here:
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