Hamlet
RST, Friday 26th April 2013
For
the last few years it has been difficult to escape Jonathan Slinger (in a
theatrical sense, you understand?) He is
a dependable and capable actor and here he has been trusted with the most
famous Dane of them all, Hamlet. He
gives a dependable and capable performance.
I want to think of something nice to say because there really wasn’t
anything wrong with it but then neither was there anything particularly right
with it. The RSC has, in recent times,
preferred to under-do Shakespearian drama and overdo Shakespearian humour. Mr Slinger is ideal for such an
interpretation of the Bard because he has almost no stage-presence. I have touched upon Mr Slinger’s appearance
before and shall not do so again but suffice to say he was too believable as a
lunatic when he feigned madness and not remotely believable as the fresh, young
and passionate student from Wittenberg (in this instance, curiously older than
his pretty contemporaries).
Although the costume was loosely
contemporary, generic Scandinavian, i.e. Lots of knitted, patterned jumpers;
fencing and its dress was used to convey the play’s tension. I’ve always found fencing to be a slightly
effete past-time but it is true to say that in Shakespearian times fencing was
a required skill for anyone who considered himself a gentleman. The ghost of the old King was got up in
fencing gear and wore the sinister mask of the fencer. He and Claudius were played by John
Stahl. These characters were meant to be
played by the gloriously intense Greg Hicks who was apparently ‘indisposed’ on
the night that we went to see the performance.
That was a shame. Mr Stahl
misplaced his lines in the first act which did nothing to inspire the audience
with confidence. Although, again, his
performance went on to be completely satisfactory. He played the part of Claudius like a Mafioso
thug rather than a clever, scheming villain and was therefore unpleasant,
rather than fearsome.
On a more positive note, the play
within the play was superbly weird and wonderful. There was a Vaudevillian vibe as the players
enacted an approximation of the old King’s murder. The actors used mime and costume to convey
their drama. When the actor playing
Claudius wanted to signal his intentions towards Gertrude he raised up a
baguette hanging from his waist and aimed it at the player-Queen in a bizarre
simulation of sex that was both humorous and sinister.
After a long first half we were in
much need of a drink. By which I mean
coffee (and those scrumptious raisins covered in about an inch of chocolate)
because the theatre was so cold and I needed to thaw out. However, an officious young usher prevented
me from taking my coffee back to my seat on the grounds of ‘Health and Safety’. I’m not sure why it is more dangerous to
drink coffee in the theatre than in the draughty foyer. I could have taken wine back to my seat and
run the risk of becoming drunk and disorderly but not coffee ‘because it’s hot’. So, you might want to remember to take an
extra jumper if you’re going to the RST anytime soon.
I liked Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, played by Oliver Ryan and Nicholas Tennant respectively. They gave an edgy, roguish portrayal of the
duo. Their entrance into the drama moves
the plot on as we see Hamlet and Claudius from another perspective. Robin Soans as Polonius was a joy, with his
misjudged meddling in the affairs of state.
He brought just the right amount of humour to the part so that I felt
genuinely sad to see the end of his character when Hamlet mistakenly murders
him. His daughter, Ophelia was played by
the much lauded Pippa Nixon. I say much
lauded because I believe her Rosalind (As
you like it) is superb. As Ophelia I
was perturbed by her elfin haircut.
Hamlet had nothing to grab hold of when he tries to assault her. Perhaps the Pre-Raphaelites are to blame for
my unshakable vision of Ophelia with abundant locks.
The scenery implied an old-fashioned
village hall with wooden floor and stage with curtains. This was suitably dark but oddly
impersonal. This scenery existed for the
first two thirds of the play until all the wooden flooring was pulled up to
reveal muddy earth underneath, the resting place of Yorick etc. This change of scenery seemed unnecessarily
time-consuming. It took the characters
some time to pull up all the wooden flooring and remove it from the stage. Still, it’s not as if Hamlet’s a long play….. When the new setting was established it also
acted as an appropriate place for Ophelia’s burial.
Finally we came to the scene of
almost everybody’s doom. There was a
distinct lack of gore in this fencing scene which meant that I wasn’t quite
sure when the fatal blows were inflicted and again, the fencing seemed oddly
sterile for such a tragic close to this famous play. Perhaps the creators of this particular
interpretation felt the same because, for some inexplicable reason, when all
lay dead and dying water started pouring from the Gods. This was either some sort of simulation of a
sprinkler system or of rain. We near the
front received splashes of water in the face.
Ophelia, still lying in her grave, got absolutely soaked. When she got up to bow she looked absolutely
murderous, with water trickling down her forehead. She looked more unhinged than she had done
throughout the whole performance. I
cannot fathom what this was meant to add to the play but it certainly acted as
some much needed drama but too little, too late. By this point all my hopes were with
Fortinbras whose optimistic lines close the play.
