DRAMA
the world of this play. Max Hamilton’s darkly intense Reynaldo was another strong performance. A double agent serving the interests of both Laertes and Ophelia, he embodied the theme of deception and disguise so central to both this play and Shakespeare’s masterpiece – ever watchful, missing nothing, noticing everything. Hamlet is a play that explores the power of theatre to move, inspire and prick the guilty conscience. The troupe of Players, later used by Shakespeare’s Hamlet to expose his uncle’s machinations, are here employed to entertain the young courtiers. When the lead player (interpreted with maturity by Joshua McConnell) describes Priam’s death at the hands of the ‘rugged Pyrrhus’, Lolly Whitney Low’s troubled response makes clear the impact of this key moment on the impressionable young prince. The players’ strong physicality, vocal excellence and collaborative purpose showcased ensemble acting at its best. Equally impressive was the ensemble acting of the courtiers, whose focus never wavered. They formed a dark and intense chorus, witnessing the preparations for war, the antagonistic duelling and the troubling theatricals, all of which propel the action forward Heather Baskerville and Maggie Jarman’s costumes were visually stunning, using leather and fur to emphasise the swaggering masculinity of the court. Peter Jolly’s bold, industrial set design was beautifully complemented by Oddin Orn Hilmarsson’s eerie modern soundscape and Carol Morris’s atmospheric lighting, evoking the idea that the ‘rotten state’ of early modern Denmark’ towards the tragic denouement of Shakespeare’s masterpiece.
Prince Of Denmark
might invite parallels with our own age. At its heart, this play embodies the same questioning themes Shakespeare develops so brilliantly in Hamlet : how can individuals live according to their own truth in a society where there is little time for reflection and action is valued over thought and feeling? In the moving central love- scene of Prince Of Denmark , Hamlet
admits to Ophelia that he feels no more in charge of his own life than ‘a mechanical actor reciting his lines’. Existential uncertainty lies at the heart of this play, which, at only 50 minutes long, was tantalisingly brief. What better reminder, though, of the importance of returning to the original than the inspiration for this excellent production.
115
Made with FlippingBook Online document