This is not your father’s Hamlet
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play, over four hours in length.
The play, in the Heritage Tent in Hawrelak Park as part of the Freewill Shakespeare Festival until July 15, has been slimmed down to a sharpened two and a half hours (with intermission). Fortunately for us, the company has filled that time with a focused, theatrical epic under the stars that misses little of Shakespeare’s elemental drama. The evening moves swiftly along but director Marianne Copithorne and cast collude to make sure the dark passions and existential questions – “To be or not to be…” – are fully realized. Clarity of word and plot are emphasized as the drama wends its inexorable way to the inevitable bloody climax.
This is not your father’s Hamlet. This year the festival has gone gender-neutral – which means a play which recognizes only two major female characters (Ophelia and Gertrude) must break down more than a few barriers. For one thing, Copithorne’s reasoning is that Hamlet, as written by Shakespeare, is a college student. From Olivier to Cumberbatch, the character has usually been played by actors in their middle years, on the premise that its complexities demand a more mature approach. In this case, the director has chosen a young man, 25 year old Hunter Cardinal, to play Hamlet. She’s surrounded him with women, on the premise that a younger man might have more lady friends. It’s a fanciful but effective approach. Why not have one of those two flakey knaves, Rosencrantz (Vanessa Sabourin) as a fresh-faced young college students out on an adventure? Hamlet’s closest buddy, Horatio (Bobbi Goddard), is also female.
The company’s practical multi-level set, with its many entrances and exits (open to the surrounding greenery and setting sun), is particularly adaptable to the demands of the atmospheric medieval Elsinore Castle – home to the Bard’s conflicted hero. The ambience is considerably heightened by Scott Peters’ lighting design as Mother Nature brings down her great rheostat in the sky. Matthew Skopyk’s propulsive score underlines and illuminates the text and is particularly effective when the ghost appears in the first act in a burst of Mephistophelian cacophony. The ghost’s voice also echoes as if from some underworld cavern. Brrrrr!
At first there seems little fundamentally awry with this Hamlet – that is until the shade of his father appears on the battlements and charges his son to exact vengeance on the man who murdered him – the King’s own brother, Claudius (who then, with unseemly haste, married Hamlet’s mother).
There is a palpable chemistry between the experienced players in the extraordinary cast of local actors. Cardinal plays his Hamlet as a modern man unable to cope with the many problems “we are heir to.” His Melancholy Dane is still a walking identity crisis. In Cardinal’s performance he’s caught in a permanent adolescence and so self-absorbed that he is finally consumed by his obsessions. Cardinal goes right at it and appears to be almost in tears immediately, “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I…” You wonder where the character goes from there. But this Hamlet is no wuss – he immediately sets out to stiffen his backbone until he can carry out his father’s ghostly decree. “Oh, vengeance!” he calls out. Hamlet loves Ophelia but realizes that he must leave her behind, leading to the “Get thee to a nunnery” speech and her subsequent madness. Cardinal speaks resoundingly with a fine energy and passion and brings a robust physicality to the role.
At first Nadien Chu’s Gertrude ably balances maternal love and an acceptance of her lot. In fact, she seems to quite enjoy being the King’s consort. The Queen seems unaware of her husband’s murder and as her son forces her to recognize her perfidy and the events she has been denying – we see her age before our eyes. This Gertrude struggles with her emotionally broken family and at the end rallies – but we see that she is dead inside.
Gianna Vacirca plays it straight as Ophelia. What you see is what you get – an innocent maiden who loves a prince and who is mercilessly attacked by him and finally seeks release in madness and suicide. This fine actor’s descent is heartbreaking – her madness set off by a pain-filled scream that begins somewhere in the lowest level of hell. At one moment, she speaks in a low, heartrending voice, “I hope all will be well.” It’s too late, girl. The actor spectacularly descends into insanity without ever veering over into parody.
Ashley Wright’s Claudius is brisk and forceful, an impressive King and husband. It is only later that he comes apart to reveal what is behind the facade as he exposes himself as a malevolent force quite capable of great evil. Robert Benz (Polonius) is hale, touching, very pleased with himself, often hilarious, very real and completely wrong about his children.
Copithorne’s judicious cuts and forceful, intelligent direction makes it clear to the audience why events are unfolding as they are.
Perhaps this Hamlet doesn’t shine a new light on Shakespeare’s disturbed Dane, but this trim and muscular production takes full advantage of the play’s intellectual and emotional levels to present an accomplished and highly enjoyable experience. And it is a jaded heart indeed, that is not challenged, touched and moved by the events of this enduring 500-year-old tragedy.
Photos by Ryan Parker
