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Directed by
Trevor Nunn
Designed by
John Gunter
Lighting by
Paul Pyant
Hamlet
Ben Wishaw
Claudius, Ghost
Tom Mannion
Gertrude
Imogen Stubbs
Polonius
Nicholas Jones
Laertes
Rory Kinnear
Ophelia
Samantha
Whittaker
Horatio
Jotham Annan
Rosencrantz
Kevin Wathen
Guildenstern
Edward Hughes
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Old Vic Theatre
17 April
- 31 July 2004 |
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There
is magic in the walls of the
Old Vic. Its stage has seen
superb performances by outstanding
talents; its very name thrills
with both, and not least with
the history of Shakespeare
performance. The magic is
at work again: on that stage
is now to be seen the best
Hamlet
this reviewer has ever seen
(and he has seen many, including
outstanding ones). Trevor
Nunn's interpretation of the
play overall, the astonishing
Ben Wishaw's Hamlet, Imogen
Stubbs's Gertrude, and Nicholas
Jones's Polonius, are without
question touched with genius.
One would think that a play
so well known, so performed
and studied, so familiar in
its rich legacy in the language
as quotation and aphorism,
would be hard to see afresh.
But Trevor Nunn has seen it
afresh, and has given us a
Hamlet
alive, vivid, utterly cogent,
utterly convincing, and utterly
modern.
Trevor Nunn has directed Hamlet
often before (though, amazingly,
never for the National Theatre
while in charge there), but
it is obvious that he has
thought it right through again,
and noticed a striking fact:
the great frequency with which
the words "youth"
and "young" occur.
He has given us youth ‚ a
Hamlet scarcely more than
a boy, an Ophelia still at
school, a young, noble, hot
Laertes ‚ and the deepened
contrast with the age of Polonius
and even the distance from
the younger generation of
Claudius becomes visible as
well as suddenly audible in
the lines. Gertrude belongs
halfway between, but in the
personable shape of Imogen
Stubbs seems almost to be
on youth's side: and in the
beautiful logic of this play
as seen and brought to light
by Nunn, she indeed turns
to that side after the (literally
crucial, as we see through
Nunn's eyes) bedroom scene
in which Hamlet kills Polonius.
Many striking nuances are
brought into view by Nunn's
understanding of the text,
and the play therefore has
a cohesion and sense nowhere
near so obvious before. Hamlet
hesitates, but actually less
than earnest "problem
of the play" disquisitions
have it. He is arrested and
sent to England in direct
consequence of Polonius's
killing, and Shakespeare's
clever manipulation of time
and opportunity becomes brilliantly
apparent in the brief absence
of Hamlet that follows, allowing
for Laertes's return and Claudius's
hatching of his plot of murder.
Much depends on the playing
of Hamlet, and here the awesome
task falls on extremely slender
shoulders ‚ the twig-like
adolescent figure of Ben Wishaw,
almost too much a wisp of
a being to carry so much freight.
Yet he does: his is an acting
talent of immense proportions
in the first flush of its
expression: what an opportunity
for a young actor, and how
superbly taken! Wishaw can
thank his stars that he had
this chance, and under Nunn's
peerless direction; and on
the very boards where Richardson,
Gielgud and Olivier did something
similar in their own first
blazings.
Nicholas Jones is a superlative
Polonius. To see why, one
must see him. He does not
buffoon the part, nor ham
it, but plays it with an exquisite
comic restraint that makes
it the funniest, the most
perfect Polonius ever seen.
He adds dimensions to Polonius:
he is not quite what Hamlet
in his irritation says he
is; he is the father genuinely
mourned by Laertes and Ophelia,
the councillor valued by the
late Hamlet and the present
Claudius; yet he is richly
funny still, and the genius
of Shakespeare's characterisation
‚ its truth and depth ‚ comes
once more to the fore, helped
by Nunn and Jones.
This is an unmissable production
of Hamlet:
it will be remembered, and
so will the names of those
who have made it what it is.
AC Grayling |
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