Hamlet

Been looking forward to see Benedict Cumberbatch’s version of Hamlet. Living in Australia means you have to rely on the National Theatre Live program to see it, unless you could afford flying over to see it on stage live. Hamlet is arguably the most produced Shakespeare play in history. Like Hedda Gabler and A Street Car Named Desire for female actors (I avoid using the word actress) Hamlet is a role that most accomplished actors would have to attempt at some point. Not long ago we had David Tennant and now we have Benedict Cumberbatch.

This production of Hamlet opened quite differently from your traditional stage versions. It opened with Hamlet moaning for his father’s passing listening to some old recordings. The first ghost scene was nowhere to be scene. It is quite obvious that Benedict Cumberbatch is really commanding stage central. Nobody would doubt Benedict Cumberbatch’s abilities nowadays. He had proved his versatility across several media. However his version of Hamlet left me feeling like missing something. I tried to figure out why as without a doubt Benedict had given his all to the character and there were some really powerful scenes, but then at times I just felt it was missing something. Having thinking over about it again and again, I realised that it was because Benedict raised the emotional bar too high too early for the character. When bar was raised so high right from the beginning, it left the character nowhere to go for the next few hours. Benedict opened the scene with so much sorrow that it border lined hysterical in many occasions. When that happened, when the character really needed to go to that place, there were limited space to manoeuvre around. For me Hamlet is also a scheming intellectual. Yes he was driven by revenge and sorrow but he also exhibited his scheming and thoughtful side throughout the play. He was also funny (which Benedict managed to hit the marks) but also calculated. Benedict Cumberbatch’s version had put sorrow and rage at the forefront, which in my opinion had some crucial dimensions of the character. He kept the wicked sarcasms and nailed certain plot points perfectly but when it required deep thoughts and that cold intellectual thinking, the pull-back was just insufficient to present a contrast. So it just descended into a softer yelling of thoughts instead of real wheels turning in his head. That said, I still think Benedict tackle a lot of part extremely well, and I particularly like how he transited into the “To be or not to be” speech. The soliloquy had become so famous that I have seen so many productions the actors were just so intentionally setting the stage up to deliver the speech so they can “command the audience”. However what I really liked about Benedict’s version is that he just really transit into the speech without pretentiously warning the audience about its coming. That what I think is natural and in character. Some critics thought it came too early but the thing is it is a character’s chain of thought that happened within the context and story of the play, so it is only suitable for it to be delivered that. That kind of naturalness is what I really like about Benedict Cumberbatch’s version of Hamlet, despite the short comings I pointed out earlier.

As for the rest of the cast, the performance was quite uneven. Ciaran Hinds’ Claudius felt very unconcerning to me and it felt like there was a huge drift or gap between his character and the rest of the cast. He could be talking to another character but you didn’t really feel like he was there talking. Anastasia Hille’s Gertrude started off quite wooden but as the play progressed she really warmed up and I personally really like the warmth she radiated when she was interacting with the younger characters. That warm motherly feel made the character so much more realistic and likeable. Jim Norton’s Polonius for me was quite irritating and the best moments were when Hamlet showered him with unreserved sarcasms and eventually killed him. His relationship with his kids, and basically the whole Polonius clan just had no chemistry with each other at all. Sian Brooke as Ophelia was quite unconvincing for me. I couldn’t feel the innocence and fragility in her version of Ophelia and for me that was a big disappointment. I understand actors are not here to fulfil audience’s dreams but for me the absence of essential elements from a character was still a huge let down. I appreciate the National Theatre employed a British African actor as Laetres, which I thought is a huge advance in colour blind casting. However, the actor seemed to have a broken voice that really affected his performance. I don’t know whether it was his natural voice or his voice was damaged for the performance but that voice had severely taxed the performance as it commanded no stage presence. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were extremely memorable despite their short appearances here and there. But whenever they showed up they lit up the stage with appropriate level of energy, which I think was desperately needed at times.

In other areas, I was particularly impressed by the stage design of this production. From how the initial claustrophobic opening scene to the opening up to a much bigger and yet cold playground and then transforming into the derelicts of Act II was just ingenious. The agility of the stage and how some pieces of props changed characters throughout the play was just spectacular. Lighting and sound were weaved into the production smoothly. It is amazing how a simple change of tones in lighting transformed the same set into something completely different. Sound effects also echoed through the walls of the set making it extremely convincing when Hamlet said “Denmark is his prison”. The production design, lighting and audio teams really put together a world that seemed to have leaped out vividly form the pages. 

All in all this version of Hamlet was not a bad production, but it came short as a production that failed to present all the intricate dimensions written on the pages. There were too many characters and too many scenes with eyes wide opened and tears bawling from eyes, some of which did not need to be presented in such ways. It felt like a shallow drama wrapped under Shakespeare’s cloak but Shakespeare himself became quite invisible apart from the Elizabethan uttered from the performers’ mouths. I personally would like to see the production uncovering more layers of the play instead of just presenting a standard royal soap opera in Hamlet’s name because it just left me wondering even though I knew exactly what the story was about.