HAMLET
at the Rose
Playhouse Bankside
04.01.16
Hamlet
at the Rose
Theatre, the
Bankside
playhouse
built in the 1580s by Philip Henslowe, where Shakespeare, Marlowe,
Johnson and Kyd were staged
until the early 17th century.
When
the sweet prince last trod these boards, just three years ago, we
were assured that Hamlet was staged here in 1594. Whether that's true
or not, there is a definite sense of historical continuity here, even
in this radical re-working of Shakespeare's longest drama.
“This
bodes some strange eruption in our state,” warns Horatio, the first
words spoken after an ominous soundscape. This
is a wilfully disjointed, oneiric vision
of Hamlet's world - “In that sleep of death, what dreams may come,”
he muses, in his big soliloquy.
Chris
Clynes is the black-clad
Prince;
he speaks the speeches with clarity, and occasional passion - “my
mind's eye” - but never seems to have much mirth to lose; we're too
used to lighter, more jocular Hamlets, perhaps. Messing
with his mind in this claustrophobic space are Suzanne Marie's
hysteric Ophelia, Louise Templeton's unfeeling Gertrude, and Nigel
Fyfe's Claudius – an imposing presence, though not especially
regal. Ross McNamara's Laertes, great-coat
and rifle,
brings
a controlled passion to his role, and Luke Jasztal makes an engaging
Horatio, especially in his closing speech, where he borrows some of
Fortinbras's valediction.
Dermot
Dolan's Polonius is dressed like a comic, and bears a banjo, but is
singularly unamusing.
Yorick's
skull makes an early, unlooked-for appearance – the Gravedigger a
victim of the cuts – and returns as Ophelia's remembrances. Much of
the poetry, and
some
of the soliloquies,
are lost in this nightmare world.
The
echoing excavation area is used for the ghost-watchers and much more
– Hamlet's return, for instance – and there are some telling
visual moments, like Ophelia's funeral procession. And Hamlet's
little marionettes
for the Murder of Gonzago.
The
playlist is nothing if not eclectic: Goodnight Sweetheart, Mad About
the Boy, Send
in the Clowns, Leonard
Cohen, Lonely
Goatherd [for the Mousetrap], Lili Marlene [for
Ophelia and Laertes sharing a bag of chips].
Director
Diana Vucane's 90-minute
tragedy seeks to see the play afresh through Hamlet's eyes, “focusing
on the perspective of a disturbed mind, thus defying the
reality-based structure of time and space, recognizing solely the
inconceivable logic of a dream.” It
comes across, though, as an earnest but unedifying student concept,
offering only occasional insights into Shakespeare's play or Hamlet's
troubled mind.
production photograph by Jana Andrejeva-Andersone
