HAMLET. To 27 November.
London
HAMLET
by William Shakespeare
Barbican Theatre To 27 November 2004
Mon-Sat 7.15pm
Captioned 18 Nov
Runs 3hr 35min One interval
TICKETS: 0845 120 755
www.barbican.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 November
A clear, clean account, if not consistently inspiring.This production's had some unkind reviews. Maybe director Yukio Ninagawa's sin is to have denuded the stage of the gorgeous cherry blossom and Japanese set and cast of his first Shakespeare to visit Britain, Macbeth, which astonished Edinburgh in the 1980s.
Gone too is the soaringly atmospheric use of emotional classical music only a baroque minor-key piece as Hamlet's corpse is varied off at the end remains. But it's hardly fair to blame a director for not working in his style of 20 years ago.
Tall black walls surround the stage, offset only by the formal red court costumes suggesting an abstract design derived from Japanese court-dress. When Hamlet's alone, in black, and the huge doors snap shut on him, it's as if we're visiting his mind. The impression's reinforced by Maloney's terse dryness in conversation, which becomes a reflective, if often rapid thought-stream when alone.
At times he seems to float with events summoned by Claudius after Polonius' death he offers no resistance. Taking a deliberate choice doesn't come naturally. Maloney's is a reactive prince; what he reacts too are the realisations his intelligence leads him to in the somewhat rotten state of Denmark.
There's a long silence as he realises his old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were sent for (entering in sleeveless cardigans, they're soon absorbed into Elsinore court dress), and his sudden suspicion his meeting with Ophelia is a set-up changes his comments about nunneries from sympathetic to angry.
Elsewhere, attempting to turn old Hamlet's Ghost into a Samurai shouting out death agonies in recall doesn't work. Sometimes rapid speech leads to indistinctness even with Frances Tomelty's Gertrude, though the repose she briefly reaches with Hamlet at the end of the bedchamber scene is moving.
Peter Egan is a neutral Claudius (perhaps lack of any stage furnishings apart from lights that sway above at troubled times doesn't help; being ruler of all you survey doesn't mean much when there's precious little to survey).
Robert Demeger's Polonius is unsympathetic rather than sinister, a fair interpretation; of his children, Ophelia reaches an impressive final disarray while Laertes remains ill-characterised.
Barnardo/Messenger: James Tucker
Francisco: Graham Ingle
Horatio: Bob Barrett
Marcellus/Captain/2nd Gentleman/Poisoner: Barry Aird
Claudius/Ghost: Peter Egan
Cornelius/1st Gentleman/2nd Gravedigger: Edward Clayton
Voltemand/Priest: Leon Tanner
Laertes/Dumb King: Adam Dodd
Polonius: Robert Demeger
Hamlet: Michael Maloney
Gertrude: Frances Tomelty
Ophelia: Laura Rees
Reynaldo/Osric: Tristram Wymark
Rosencrantz: Brendan O' Hea
Guildenstern: Nick Bagnall
First Player/1st Gravedigger: Jim Hooper
Player King: Daniel Rigby
Player Queen: Takehiro Hira
Lucianus/Sailor: Marc Baylis
Fortinbras: Mido Hamada
Dumb Queen: Freya Dominic
Director: Yukio Ninagawa
Designer: Tsukasa Nakagoshi
Lighting: Tamotsu Harada
Sound: Masahiro Inoue
Costume: Lily Komine
Assistant director: Takaaki Inoue
Fight director: Terry King
2004-11-16 01:05:46