William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, first seen around 1600, has evoked innumerable responses in the 400-plus years since it leaped into action—or inaction as its title character focuses on—but I wonder if it’s ever been accused of conjuring boredom.
Until now, that is, when for his Armory production—transported from London’s Almeida Theatre—director Robert Icke has accomplished the dubious feat. Not that this Hamlet—in modern dress, in accord with how Shakespeare is done nowadays—is boring start to finish, as boring as Claudius (Angus Wright) speaking several of his speeches with hands in pants pockets.
Sometimes this Hamlet springs to sudden life but for reasons that are more disorienting than anything enlivening. To wit: In the past, Hamlet observers have likely assumed the grieving Hamlet (Alex Lawther, of The Imitation Game) has gone to an all-boy’s school. Not. When deceitful pals Guildenstern and Rosencrantz show up, it turns out that their preparatory institution was mixed gender and that Guildenstern (Tia Bannon) is a young lady who seems to think she and Hamlet had a budding school-day romance.
That’s only one of Icke’s numerous directorial notions, which include an awkward Hamlet-Gertrude bedroom scene that does-it-or-doesn’t-it take place in Gertrude’s bedroom. Or is the audience still in the newly married couple’s all-purpose living room that set and costume designer Hildegarde Bechtler has created with its commodious L-shaped divan. Is it likely Claudius and Gertrude would receive the Norway Ambassador in that living-room-as-love-nest? Icke is sure big on monarchic informality.
Although the director retains the fifth-act fencing sequence, during which Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude and Laertes (Luke Treadaway) come to tragic ends, he introduces pistols elsewhere. Hamlet fires his rod at the arras behind which ill-fated Polonius (Peter Wight) is eavesdropping.
Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to report that Icke first staged this Hamlet (with a different Hamlet, Andrew Scott) in a more intimate space than the Armory. The Almeida, once an early Victorian lecture hall, is a compact theatre on a North London side street. Bechtler has even tried to suggest the interior’s upstage brick wall here.
Nonetheless, something’s lost, and whatever Icke has done to open it up has only exaggerated the drawbacks I noted at the intimate Almeida. What does have some mitigating effect is the opening scene in which Marcellus and cohorts are keeping late watch and, to their shock, spot the late King Hamlet’s Ghost (David Rintoul). Not close up, however, but on their monitors. Yes, Icke goes multi-media here, and then uses the occasionally lowered screen to show other occurrences.
Not the least is Norway’s Fortinbras (Nikesh Patel, on screen only), intent on reclaiming lands lost to the Danes. Often, the Fortinbras segments are trimmed from Hamlet revivals. Their inclusion here helps account for the three-hour-45-minute length of this one—with two intermissions, the first allowed after almost two hours. To some extent, the several Bob Dylan songs aired in excerpts by sound designer Tom Gibbons eat some time as well.
The rest of the lengthy stretch has to do with the too-often leisurely pace at which Shakespeare’s language is delivered, often by Lawther’s Hamlet. And, of course, any Hamlet’s effectiveness rests on the Hamlet at hand.
Lawther is a slight figure, who gave me the impression of a chrysalis just abandoned by its butterfly. That he doesn’t complete the check list for your ideal prince is beside the point. Hamlet’s inability to follow through on his mission to compensate for his father’s murder doesn’t seem to be a result of Lawther’s—and Icke’s—attitude toward the doomed lad.
Rather, this Hamlet merely appears to be a fellow too frequently slow on the uptake. Although once in a while he finds the cue for passion in one of Hamlet’s soliloquies, more often he comes down center stage to recite the asides as if instructing the audience on how to recognize odd behavior.
At times he alternates rushing Shakespeare’s indelible lines and then emphasizing those less pressing. This also occurs during his exchanges. When, for example, he barrels through the emphatic “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” What purpose that quick dismissal serves escapes me.
The rest of the cast ranges from strong to acceptable. Wright latches firmly onto Claudius’s duplicity and, certainly, to his lust for Gertrude. He’s especially moving when confessing his sins. (Why he’s aware of Hamlet pointing a pistol at him through the sequence, only Icke knows.) Wright is a Polonius of proper mental density.
Rintoul is persuasive as Hamlet’s Ghost and the Player King. (Why at some moments it’s unclear which he’s portraying, again, only Icke knows.) As Ophelia, the lithe Kirsty Rider fulfills the character’s wide, sad range. When she’s become mad and distributes flowers to those at court, her madness is throttling. (Why the blooms aren’t real but are tattoos on her limbs is another curious detail Icke alone can explain.)
Treadway’s Laertes is the other outstanding performance in this ensemble, whereas Ehle’s Gertrude is disappointing, somewhat colorless. As a late addition to the cast, she may still be finding her way, and possibly Icke will help her find it.
To fool around with Shakespeare’s most famous line: To be or not to be an exhilarating, respectful Hamlet, that’s the question improperly answered through the tragedy’s reappearance. “Remember me,” the Ghost exhorts. Not this time.
Hamlet opened June 28, 2022, at the Park Avenue Armory and runs through August 13. Information and tickets: armoryonpark.org
