A pall of throat-curdling smoke hangs heavily in the air at St. Ann’s Warehouse—a scented sign of the funereal proceedings that open the Gate Theatre Dublin’s ponderous production of Hamlet. The king is dead, and his namesake son, Hamlet (Ruth Negga), is so wracked with grief that he can’t even give voice to his sobs.
The scene is a brief, and wordless, addition—one of several tweaks, and perhaps the most shrewd, that director Yaël Farber has made to Shakespeare’s most introspective play: It allows us to get a glimpse of Negga—an Oscar-nominated actress (Loving) whose stage résumé includes stints at the Royal Court, the Old Vic, and the Abbey Dublin—almost instantly, and thank goodness for that; we want to spend as much time as possible with her charismatic, contemplative character.
Sporting a severely tailored suit and her signature close-cropped hairstyle, Negga radiates passion, fire, and intelligence. Hamlet may be steeped in sorrow and burning with rage—after all, his mother, Gertrude (Fiona Bell), did just marry his uncle Claudius (Owen Roe) after an apparent act of fratricide—but everyone still wants to hang with him. Ophelia (Aoife Duffin) is completely besotted. The pompous Polonius (Nick Dunning) is suspicious of the sweet-talking prince—especially as it concerns his daughter/pawn, Ophelia—but he attempts to curry favor at every turn. Gertrude doesn’t want him to go back to school (“Go not to Wittenberg,” she pleads). And BFF Horatio (Mark Huberman), at Elsinore for his pal’s dad’s funeral—Or was it his mom’s wedding? (“Indeed, it followed hard upon,” says Horatio sheepishly)—basically has Hamlet’s back anytime, anywhere, from Hamlet’s first foggy encounter with his father’s Ghost (Steve Hartland) to his poisonous thrust-and-parry with Ophelia’s vengeful brother, Laertes (Gavin Drea). Regrettably, one thing Horatio doesn’t have: his “Goodnight, sweet prince./ And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” line, which Farber has clipped from the final scene presumably in an attempt to give Hamlet the last word (“The rest is silence”). Fortinbras is absent as well.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★ review here.]
There’s an argument to be made for starting and finishing the action focused on the most dynamic character—and does anyone miss Fortinbras anyway?—but this Hamlet moves slower than your average gravedigger. It clocks in at nearly three and a half hours, including intermission. Three and a half heavy, dry ice–laden hours. Set and costume designer Susan Hilferty (Wicked) brings a bit of lightness to the proceedings—e.g., following the Ghost around the stage with a floaty tarp that resembles a giant American Beauty plastic bag. Note that Gertrude first appears in a Melania Trump–esque powder-blue shawl-collar suit dress, a glaringly obvious but nevertheless amusing nod to the first lady’s Ralph Lauren–designed inauguration-day garb. And the interchangeable Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Barry McKiernan and Shane O’Reilly) look like a pair of insufferable tweed-and-sneaker-wearing hipster New Yorkers.
One more bit that falls by the wayside in Farber’s final-scene edit: the now-famous line that inspired an award-winning play of its own. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.”
Hamlet opened Feb. 10, 2020, and runs through March 8 at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Tickets and information: stannswarehouse.org
