One Last Time January 4, 2009
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 1 comment so farDespite the Royal Shakespeare Company saying that David Tennant’s back injury would keep him off the stage until 5 Jan, the rumours had been flying around this wee corner of the internet for the last few days. Some of the more obsessed fans were driving rsc.org.uk’s hit rate into the stratosphere, looking for updates. So it was probably a good idea that before the curtain came up on last night’s performance of Hamlet at the Novello the producer came on stage to ‘clarify that tonight the part of Hamlet will be played by … David Tennant’. The theatre erupted, and didn’t calm down until the first soldier was well onto the stage.
Being only slightly obsessed, this was the fourth time I’ve seen this production. I’ve never done that with a play before, but this repays repeated viewing, as I become more aware of the nuances and depth of dialogue. I’ve probably seen Hamlet 8 or 9 times now, and serious theatres goers may well see it twenty, thirty or more times in a lifetime. So, if you, dear reader (and I use the singular advisedly) aren’t too tired of this, here’s one final Hamlet review, at least for this run.
This performance was every bit as absorbing as my first, and the ensemble seemed somehow more relaxed, the performances more intense than when I saw it on 5 Dec. Given that was just before Tennant went sick, and he was certainly in pain, its not surprising he seemed a little off that night. This time, he made a few concessions to his surgery, walking off the stage rather than running, and avoiding a couple of leaps, but was still extremely energetic and physical. I hate to think of him being in pain for something I enjoyed so much, but if he was, it certainly didn’t show.
Sitting in row D of the stalls (with specs this time), the faces were so much more visible. I became quite absorbed with watching Penny Downie (Gertrude). As Patrick Stewart (Claudius) is telling Hamlet, to stop mourning his father she is a picture of uncertainty and during the Players scene Gertrude becomes more and more angry, and disturbed, by what she is seeing, while Claudius is a mask of repressed fury. I know its what they’re there for, but in every scene every single actor is doing something, showing something.
The oedipal nature of the bedroom scene gets stronger every time I see this production. Hamlet’s anger at his mother is almost that of a jealous lover rather than a horrified son. He scorns his mother’s sexuality, but at the same time seems fixated on it. It’s here that the contrast between Tennant’s performance and that of the understudy, Ed Bennett, hits me hardest. Bennett’s performance was very competent, certainly very clear, but somehow, in this scene particularly, far more simplistic.
Tennant’s Hamlet is deeply uncertain, sad more than angry, but also an arrogant young prince, witty and intelligent, most of all a vulnerable, tragic young man who doesn’t really have the strength he needs to deal with the situation in which he finds himself.
Hamlet plays at the Novello until 10 Jan. No chance of tickets now!
I’m not obsessed, honest guv December 6, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 1 comment so farBy chance, I got a cheap ticket for Hamlet (yes, the RSC production, starring David Tennant) last night so, after an exhausting week at work, raced back into London for a night at the theatre. As an unexpected treat, it was a good evening, but somehow I’m left feeling a little ho-hum.
David Tennant in Hamlet
Maybe it was the audience, coughing away. At this time of the year, theatres should hand everyone cough sweets and tell them to use them, or give them to a neighbour who needs them. And theatre-goers with coughs should take their own.
Maybe it was the cheap seat (B3 on the Grand Circle), where the bottom corner of the stage was invisible, and I forgot my glasses so got a headache from trying to focus on faces. You gets what you pays for, and I paid a tenner to see one of the top shows in London, supposedly sold out for weeks with tickets trading for £400+ on the ripoff sites like getmein.com (no, I’m not linking to it).
Maybe it was the change of theatre. The Courtyard in Stratford has about the same number of seats as the Novello, but the thrust stage, and lower circle and balcony make it a far more intimate experience. The players enter through the audience, and interact with them in a way that’s not possible in the grand proscenium arch of the (truly magnificent) Novello. It’s such a pity the RSC didn’t go back to the Roundhouse, where they showed the Histories.
Maybe it was just me being tired and irritable.
Patrick Stewart was remarkable. This staging seems to suit him somehow. As he struggles to pray ‘My words fly up, my thoughts remain below’ you could have heard a pin drop (if it wasn’t for the coughing).
David Tennant is still wonderful, but the mad quirkiness and humour, which balanced and intensified the tragedy in Stratford last night seemed a little off. There were definitely moments when I found myself wishing he’d just calm down. At first, it seemed the intensity was lacking. In September, he delivered his first soliloquy a couple of meters from me, his whole body and face wracked in anguish as he crouched in a fetal position. In London, he does more of it standing, and, at least from a distance, it is flatter.
After a while, that picked up, and the bedroom scene with Gertrude (Penny Downie) was hugely powerful. He tears verbal strips off her, accusing her of complicity in his father’s murder, and both his performance and hers are gut wrenching.
I’ve got tickets to see this with friends over New Year, so I’m hoping that, in good seats and when I’m not exhausted it will be every bit the fabulous experience it was in Stratford. Hamlet runs at the Novello Theatre until 10 Jan. In theory it’s sold out, but there seem to be tickets reappearing, so check the theatre’s website and don’t pay silly tout prices. Avoid the front row of the Grand Circle if you’re over 5′ 5″, and be aware that there is a restricted view on the cheap seats.
This seems a negative review, but it is only that 5 stars fell to 4. I walked home exhausted but pleased through the back streets of Covent Garden, with the final scene replaying in my head.
The rest is silence.
Shakespeare’s Complete Works, and Hamlet again October 6, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentA Complete Works is something every home should have, an essential part of the personal library along with a dictionary and undergraduate texts you couldn’t quite bear to sell. Mine has been in storage in Auckland for ten years now, and has probably rotted, so I recently bought the RSC edition. I’ve just sent away for a more up-to-date version, the BBC Shakespeare Collection, including films of all the plays. It’s not easy reading through a script, and watching a fairly faithful production has got to be a better way of preparing to see a play you don’t know well.
Courtesy of the Observer, I watched Zeferrelli’s 1980 production starring Mel Gibson, Glenn Close and Helena Bonham-Carter this evening. It seemed so much less intense than the version I saw recently at the RSC, and while Mel Gibson is better than I’d have expected, he isn’t a patch on David Tennant. Gibson’s Hamlet is far more balanced, less angry and less passionate. Glenn Close’s Gertrude is a treat though, more calculating and ambiguous than Penny Downie’s. It’s also a lot shorter.
To Be or Not To Be? October 5, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentFor once the full, outrageous, West End ticket price might just have been worth paying, not that we did. Rupert Goold’s contemporary adaptation of Pirandello’s classic ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ is captivating, intellectually challenging, aesthetically pleasing and long enough to warrant an interval.
As Noma Dumezweni’s Producer tries, and fails, to complete a docu-drama (or is that a drama documentary) about the euthanasia of a teenager, six people appear and demand that she tell their story instead. She is drawn further and further into their tale of incest and death and we spiral down into an intense consideration of the meaning of existence and the way in which theatre, or film, relates to reality. Ian McDiarmad is a creepy aged Father, guilty but continuing his incestuous relationship with his Step Daughter, played by Denise Gough.
The boundaries between reality and fiction unravel as the Producer runs behind the stage of Les Mis next door, before reappearing on the stage. Throughout, the play examines theatre as a more accurate portrayal of reality. The opera of the crucial moment when the Mother discovers the Father and Step Daughter in the act is far more dramatic and powerful than a realistic staging would be, hitting the audience with their trauma.
Hamlet is the play of the moment with even a free DVD of Zeferrelli’s 1980 version in my paper this morning. This production draws parallels with the play within a play and questioning of existence, using ‘Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I‘ to make the point that there may be more passion in a play than in real life. It tells us that there is something of Hamlet in all of us, but starts to take it a little far when self-indulgently going on about the David Tennant and Jude Law versions crowding the London stage this winter.
In all an excellent production, although it runs on about 20 minutes too far at the end, almost as if they are trying to find their way back out of the thing and losing some of the impact in the process.
Six Characters in Search of An Author plays at the Gielgud until 8 November. There seem to be lots of cheap tickets at the TKT booth, partly perhaps because it is a challenging play rather than the normal, easy West-End musical. We had good view, despite being at the end of the sixth row of the stalls (F3-4)
What A Piece of Work is (that) Man September 18, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , 4 commentsThere is something disconcerting about seeing a very familiar TV actor on the stage. TV is a very intimate medium, in your home, watched alone or with family and a TV series can be a part of life for months or even years. The intimacy of the stage is different. The actor is right there before you, perhaps only a few feet away, but you are one of hundreds, even as it feels he is talking to you alone. You’re more aware of their physical presence, less able to see everything thats happening.
After months of waiting, and all the hype, last night I finally saw David Tennant in the RSCs production of Hamlet in Stratford upon Avon, and he is wonderful.
The royal party arrive on stage and Dr Who is standing in the corner in a well-cut suit. That’s weird. Then a miserable young man comes to life, mourning his father and appalled at his mother’s hasty remarriage. The royal party leave and Tennant sobs and rages his way through the first soliliquy (frailty thy name is woman) fetal on the floor. It’s heart breaking and the next three and a half hours pass in another world.
It’s not all painful. This company finds far more humour in the play than I’ve seen before. Polonious as the doddery old fool teased affectionately by his children, more arrogantly by Hamlet, Hamlets suspicion of Rozencrantz and Guildenstern. Tennant’s Hamlet is an irreverent student feigning madness but also reflective and selfdoubting, making good use of his trademark manic energy. It could so easily go over the top, but it never does.
Patrick Stewart is, of course, excellent. At times, he seems to anchor the stage while Tennant flies around it. Even knowing the plot, he arouses admiration, at least up to the point where he confesses the murder of Hamlet’s father. Although ruthless, he is calm and noble. His early concern for his nephew seems genuine enough.
But it is Tennant’s play. He speaks 37% of the lines (useful fact from the programme), and most of the audience are there to see him. Watching him, he constantly brings ever more meaning out of the words, with his voice, face, hands, entire body. He is Hamlet, totally and completely.
As I leave, its less with the euphoria of seeing a favourite actor than feeling the intense tragedy of the young prince.
Hamlet plays at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon until November, then transfers to London. Both seasons are completely sold out, though there are returns available on the day. If you are booking for the Courtyard, avoid the first few seats at the feet of horseshoe in the stalls. I was in D50, right beside the base of the stage, and saw a lot of backs. The actors do turn to all sides, but when they’re a little way down the thrust of the stage, those seats are behind them.
