Hamlet – Belvoir

Overview

There's a great freedom to doing Hamlet, since you know that everyone has already seen it. Or at least, everyone who's likely to see it has seen it. It means that you have real licence to get creative, knowing that audiences will be making meaning with ingredients beyond just those that appear on this one stage.

Belvoir's new production of Hamlet, directed by adaptations whizz Simon Stone (Miss Julie, Death of a Salesman, etc), grabs this opportunity with gusto and goes on to reach some quite unexpected highs. Shakespeare's words are preserved, but plenty is cut out, including the fairly loved characters of Horatio, the company of players, the sentries who first spy Hamlet's father's ghost and either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern (ie, there's only one amalgam of the two).

And as much as these are some of the most fun characters, you know what? You don't really miss them. After all, they're only away this once. The guiding principle for Stone and his team was that the audience should not miss a single important moment because their attention was lost by some meandering verse.

To this end, they've also focused on vivid characterisation, which is ultimately what makes the production so compulsively watchable and surprisingly impactful. On the one hand it's more two-dimensional; on the other, it makes clear elements of the tale that were not so apparent before.

Toby Schmitz is a striking Prince of Denmark. Although his performance will be a level too intense and histrionic for some, it's also amazingly committed and completely without vanity. His pain and twisted anger are ever near the surface, and it's never more evident than in his behaviour toward Ophelia (Emily Barclay, always wonderful).

Stone brings out the extent to which Hamlet's disgust at his mother, Gertrude (Robyn Nevin) — for running into the arms of his recently departed father's brother, Polonius (John Gaden) — makes him a terrible misogynist towards every woman, his dear Ophelia included. For what may be the first time, you understand how the poor lass was so utterly driven to madness. Barclay's scenes with her father, — Laertes (Greg Stone), a prattling, obsequious but loveable man — further this effect. Each one is a beautiful knockout, in its own way.

Some of the bold choices in this production work; others don't. The impact of maxi-minimalist sets like this is starting to fade, surely. Like a great dessert at the finale of a meal, however, the clincher for this production of Hamlet is the ending, which ensured I'd be thinking mainly of its sweet conjurations all the way home. It's very powerful stuff.

This may not be the definitive Hamlet, but it's a daring, emotive and impressive one. And you know which is the more interesting to watch.

From November 19, Ewen Leslie will replace Toby Schmitz in the role of Hamlet due to scheduling conflicts. Full information at the Belvoir website.