won't you come out to play?

hamlet.

fucking. hamlet.

i don't actually know where to begin with this...

the overall look was a modern one, and reasonably minimal, which they made work really well (it reminded me of the rsc production of 'a midsummer night's dream' that i saw about 15 years ago where the only props the players had were doors, umbrellas and ribbons). they made amazing use of light - particularly in the first scenes with all the confusion about the ghost - it was all torches and reflective surfaces and it really evoked a sense of fear and charged the scene with a frenetic energy. with the combination of that, and the main set pieces being mirrors and chandeliers, the designers and director found a metaphor in the design for the key themes that run through the play - madness and sanity, good and evil, hope and despair - the play explores these things, and the even more interesting liminal places between them.

hamlet's madness was beautifully interpreted by director gregory doran and by mr tennant. in some productions it's played with a kind of wild abandon that in my opinion diminishes hamlets intelligence and the overall design of his feigned insanity. yes, he has moments of doubt and incredible anxiety, but he never truly runs mad - it's all a show to help him in his purpose avenging his father's murder. tennant played an almost doctor-esque, goofy, funny lunatic, while interspersing moments of perfect lucidity, and that made him so much more believable as a bereft son on a mission that felt he was "cursed... that ever [he] was born to set it right."

by contrast, ophelia's heartbroken insanity was heartbreaking in it's turn. the family scene (act 1, scene 3) where she, laertes, and polonius talk together, sets up their closeness and affection as a trio, and this makes it all the more painful when polonius dies. in some other productions polonius' death is interpreted as comic because of the witty remarks hamlet makes about it in his mad ramblings and evasive responses to enquiries about where he has stowed the body. but polonius' death is what drives ophelia mad - her grief for her father is what pushes her over the edge, and this production made that so elegantly clear. mariah gale played ophelia as a passionate, exuberant young woman at the beginning of the play, and that set up the tragic inversion of her innocent exuberance into a passionate insanity that was perfectly beautiful, and unbelievably sad.
it was interesting to read in the program that in preparation for the part doran and gale went down to the river where a young girl called katherine hamlet drowned when shakespeare was just fifteen. they picked flowers and made garlands, and in the process found some of the flowers and weeds described by gertrude when she reports ophelia's death to the king and laertes. they saw that in order to pick them "her skin would have become muddy, scratched, and red-raw with [nettle] stings." and that's how she appeared on the stage - in a muddy slip, covered in dirt and grime, clutching an armful of bedraggled weeds. it was exquisitely sad.

this company definitely found the humor in the play too. i think that's what i loved most about it - the gravity of the themes, and the genuine pain and turmoil of the characters was conveyed absolutely believably, yet the humour in the text was honoured as well. the two funniest characters ended up being polonius (played by oliver ford davies as a lovable but slightly doddery man who, in is rambles, tended to lose his train of thought) and the grave-digger (played as i think my inexperienced australian ears interpreted as a yorkshireman by mark hadfield), though tennant's sensitive timing and clever inflection made this hamlet a very funny one too.

and from the fangirl part of my brain?
1. barefoot!tennant = hot
2. bleeding!tennant = hot
3. crazy!tennant = hot
4. horatio/hamlet = otp

further thoughts after the second viewing.



in other news, none of the actors made an appearance at the stage door. i waited, with a handful of other fans, and for two and a half hours, but in the end we were too cold and tired, and we figured that he must have left some other way.
having come so far i was pretty disappointed not to get a glimpse of mr tennant 'in real life', but after the harassment he has received from some other fans i can completely understand his reluctance to meet any of us any more.
shame.