DRAMA
HAMLET BEFORE HAMLET
He embodied the theme of deception and disguise so central to both this play and Shakespeare’s masterpiece, ever-watchful, missing nothing, noticing everything
The Prince Of Denmark Middle School Play REVIEW
Jo Akrill
M ichael Lesslie’s 50-minute prelude to Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy was a perfect choice for this year’s Middle School play, directed by George Chilcott and Peter Jolly. Prince Of Denmark is an imaginary prequel to Hamlet , set in an Elsinore peopled with adolescent courtiers vying for power and influence, duelling, engaging in amorous trysts by moonlight and questioning the very purpose of their existence. Moody, tender and impulsive by turns, Lolly Whitney Low was utterly convincing as the teenaged precursor of Shakespeare’s angry, angst-ridden protagonist. Particularly moving in this production was his emerging relationship with Ophelia. In Shakespeare’s play, we only witness the tattered remnants of this love- story, as Ophelia hands back Hamlet’s love-letters, clearly devastated by the loss of what had once seemed so promising a relationship. Here, Sula Dunne-Prevatt’s poised, non- submissive Ophelia flouts the will of her overbearing brother, Laertes, meeting Hamlet outside the castle walls by the
very willow-fringed brook in which we know she will later drown. These two talented young actors made utterly believable the idea that the unfolding tragedy is not just that of the Prince of Denmark, but also of the young woman whose fate is intertwined with his. A key feature of Lesslie’s play, designed with gender-blind casting in mind, is the centrality of Laertes, played here by Monica Volini as a bitter, cynical young man whose awareness of court politics and hunger for power leads him to treat his sister Ophelia, and fellow-courtier, Osric (played with superb gullibility by Leo Milne), as mere pawns in his own Machiavellian psycho-drama. Key to Volini’s compelling performance was the strength of her physicality: she embodied Laertes’ misogynistic determination brilliantly, transforming Shakespeare’s rather anodyne character into a brutally self-centred anti-hero whose machinations are worthy of the ultimate Shakespearean villain, Iago. Bearing more similarities to Shakespeare’s original character was Ajay Rajapakse’s Horatio. A modest, self-effacing scholar, he assures Hamlet
that he seeks nothing but ‘the approval of my own conscience’. Rajapakse’s subtly convincing interpretation provided the audience with the reassurance that, in this troubled court full of deception, there is at least one character who can be relied upon to remain true to himself. Ever the philosopher, he acknowledges the uncertainty of what might lie ahead, with the line (laced with irony): ‘Who knows what story lies in wait?’ For those in the audience who are familiar with Hamlet , part of the enjoyment of this play lies in the fact that we do, indeed, know ‘what story lies in wait’. Equally entertaining are Lesslie’s witty adaptations of the familiar plot and characters. In this production, Rosencrantz (Jamie Kennedy) and Guildenstern (Eliza Tracey) could not have been more dissimilar in physical terms, yet those onstage were clearly unable to tell them apart. Both Kennedy and Tracey played their roles absolutely straight, resisting what must have been a strong temptation to over-indulge the potential comedy of their roles, and thereby strengthening our sense of the reality of
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