HAMLET: till 6 September

Sadler's Wells
HAMLET: William Shakespeare
Japanese translation by Shoichiro Kawai
(with surtitles)
Sadler's Wells until September 6

Review: Heather Neill, 1 September 2003

Most unusual production precision, emotion and Mansai Nomura storms Sadler's Wells
As the charismatic Mansai Nomura storms the Sadler's Wells stage, it may be useful to remember his pre-Hamlet experience. The latest in a line of eight generations of Kyogen actors, he is a television star in Japan and, since last year, artistic director of the distinguished Setagaya Public Theatre in Tokyo. Kyogen pieces are stylised, comic interludes in the serious, slow performances of traditional Noh theatre; Mansai's other interests -- he spent a year with the RSC in the Nineties - confirm his status as all-round Japanese star.

Revelling in the freedom of the role (in Noh and Kyogen every move has its traditional meaning) he gives an angry, passionate performance, stronger on physical expression than introspection, furious rather than melancholic. This is a Hamlet who does not follow his own advice to the players, who saws the air quite a bit in fact. If he seems more a frustrated man of action than an intellectual or a
soul in torment, Mansai is, nevertheless, compelling to watch. And Fortinbras' order that his body be borne away like a soldier's 'For he was likely, had he been put on/ To have prov'd most royal . . . ' might have been justified literally in militaristic terms. In the final moments, the dead Hamlet resides in the arms of his avenged father whose fully armed statue is a frequent on-stage presence.

This reconciliation seems an unnecessarily sentimental touch, however; Hamlet does not have a happy ending.

The style of Jonathan Kent's all-male production happily mixes East and West in Paul Brown's brilliant, monumental design. Stagehands wait silently, shading their faces from view as they smoothly adjust the set which is beautifully lit by Tim Mitchell. Actors' faces picked out in otherwise gloomy surroundings, suggest menace, a hole-and-corner society where no-one is to be trusted.. A stylised court sits in blood-red compartments inside a towering, flexible bronze box.

Shinobu Nakamura's stunningly feminine Ophelia (he is understandably described as a highly promising onnegata or female impersonator in Kabuki) first appears in one of the compartments, a playpen-cell decorated with regimented dolls. Doll-like herself, she could be in Kabuki until the unbridled agony of her madness, brought on as much by her father¹s lack of sympathy as by Hamlet's cruelty.

Jonathan Kent manages to combine choreographed precision with emotional freedom in this most unusual production.

Hamlet: Mansai Nomura
The Ghost/1st Player/Player King/Gravedigger: Masane Tsukayama
Gertrude: Eisuke Sasai
Polonius: Haruhiko Joh
Claudius: Kohtaro Yoshida
Ophelia: Shinobu Nakamura
Laertes: Nozomu Masuzawa
Horatio: Eiji Yokota
Player Queen: Jun Uemoto
Osric: Hiroshi Ohmori
Priest: Toru Shinagawa
Marcellus: Ryuzaburo Ohtomo
Rosencrantz: Fuyuki Sawada
Guildenstern: Hiroki Okawa
Fortinbras: Yutaka Suzuki
Captain: Tetsuya Hiro
Reynaldo/Prologue: Ryoji Asahiro
Bernardo/Lucianus: Naoto Kaji
Francisco: Shinya Matsukawa
Player/Gentleman: Mitsuhiro Tokita
Ensemble: Akihiro Ito, Hiroaki Date, Yozaburo Hirao, Go Fujinuma

Director: Jonathan Kent
Designer: Paul Brown
Presented by Thelma Holt in association with HoriPro Inc. and Setagaya
Public Theatre
Press: Peter Thompson Associates 020 7439 1210

2003-09-01 21:10:02