Hamlet at the Barbican
Aug. 30th, 2015 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smallhobbitFirstly, DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN'T YET SEEN THIS PRODUCTION BUT HAVE TICKETS FOR IT.
My thoughts will be under the cut, but not if you come direct from email notification. The first paragraph is spoiler free, unless you don't wish to learn about my feeling about FGW.
Benedict Cumberbatch playing Hamlet was always going to be on the "one to see" list. I Haz Theatre Tickets relates how I came to get the tickets. And then FGW decided the bank holiday weekend would be a good time to strike. With the result the train we had booked would mean a journey of over three and a half hours instead of just under two. Nevertheless FGW still sent me an email hoping I would enjoy my trip and providing top tips for making it better, with no mention of the strike. If they treat their staff the same way they treat their passengers I'm not surprised they're on strike. So, SM and I booked a Travelodge (at a reasonable price, despite only booking the day before) and thought a night away would be good for both of us. Travelling worked quite well.
As for the play - I've seen better productions of Hamlet. Benedict Cumberbatch was good, which you would expect from an actor of his calibre. But he would have been better if he'd been playing opposite stronger actors. It's like watching a top class sportsman - they're at their best (or they should be) when the opposition is also high class. And a lot of the direction did nothing for me. There was none of the doubt about the state of Hamlet's mind, which is one of the joys of the play. Most of the soliloquys were set as internal monologues, with the rest of the cast static around him. If I'm working things out in my head I like to be alone and voice some thoughts out loud, which is how I see Hamlet's thoughts happening. There was little laughter, because those lines which can make the audience laugh (sometimes despite themselves) lacked suitable delivery.
The staging was opulent, maybe too much. It limited how each scene could be staged. As the curtain fell for the end of the first half the stage was strewn with stones, presumably to signify the destruction of Hamlet and by implication everyone else. It left the castle looking half derelict before anything had happened in the second half and must have been extremely unpleasant for a bare-footed Ophelia to walk over.
I'm not a purist and don't know the play well enough to generally know how far speeches have been moved around, but to my mind there were changes that detracted from the play. As usual, I saw the play without reading any reviews, reading them afterwards, and for once would agree with quite a lot of the criticism. The play lacked drama. To me, although Hamlet is the main character, a lot of what happens is because of events which have taken place, or are taking place around him, and if these events aren't given sufficient importance then the force of the tragedy is lost. This seemed to be a production which concentrated on Hamlet (the big name actor) to the detriment of the other characters.
I asked SM what he thought of the play and he said he hadn't been as emotionally involved as when we saw it before at the RSC. He found the staging distracting and also commented on the difficulty in hearing some of the speeches. He summed it up as a West End production of a Shakespeare play. I had noticed at times the actor was facing the back of the stage, which seemed to be particularly so at key points in the plot - or maybe it was more obvious then. And the moment in which Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup almost slipped past without being noticed.
Overall I'm glad I got to see Benedict Cumberbatch on stage. I am very glad we stayed over - had I battled my way up and back on the trains I'm not as sure I'd have thought it worth the effort. I can understand an actor taking the opportunity to play Hamlet, but had it been put on at the National Theatre, for example, I think it would have been better.
My thoughts will be under the cut, but not if you come direct from email notification. The first paragraph is spoiler free, unless you don't wish to learn about my feeling about FGW.
Benedict Cumberbatch playing Hamlet was always going to be on the "one to see" list. I Haz Theatre Tickets relates how I came to get the tickets. And then FGW decided the bank holiday weekend would be a good time to strike. With the result the train we had booked would mean a journey of over three and a half hours instead of just under two. Nevertheless FGW still sent me an email hoping I would enjoy my trip and providing top tips for making it better, with no mention of the strike. If they treat their staff the same way they treat their passengers I'm not surprised they're on strike. So, SM and I booked a Travelodge (at a reasonable price, despite only booking the day before) and thought a night away would be good for both of us. Travelling worked quite well.
As for the play - I've seen better productions of Hamlet. Benedict Cumberbatch was good, which you would expect from an actor of his calibre. But he would have been better if he'd been playing opposite stronger actors. It's like watching a top class sportsman - they're at their best (or they should be) when the opposition is also high class. And a lot of the direction did nothing for me. There was none of the doubt about the state of Hamlet's mind, which is one of the joys of the play. Most of the soliloquys were set as internal monologues, with the rest of the cast static around him. If I'm working things out in my head I like to be alone and voice some thoughts out loud, which is how I see Hamlet's thoughts happening. There was little laughter, because those lines which can make the audience laugh (sometimes despite themselves) lacked suitable delivery.
The staging was opulent, maybe too much. It limited how each scene could be staged. As the curtain fell for the end of the first half the stage was strewn with stones, presumably to signify the destruction of Hamlet and by implication everyone else. It left the castle looking half derelict before anything had happened in the second half and must have been extremely unpleasant for a bare-footed Ophelia to walk over.
I'm not a purist and don't know the play well enough to generally know how far speeches have been moved around, but to my mind there were changes that detracted from the play. As usual, I saw the play without reading any reviews, reading them afterwards, and for once would agree with quite a lot of the criticism. The play lacked drama. To me, although Hamlet is the main character, a lot of what happens is because of events which have taken place, or are taking place around him, and if these events aren't given sufficient importance then the force of the tragedy is lost. This seemed to be a production which concentrated on Hamlet (the big name actor) to the detriment of the other characters.
I asked SM what he thought of the play and he said he hadn't been as emotionally involved as when we saw it before at the RSC. He found the staging distracting and also commented on the difficulty in hearing some of the speeches. He summed it up as a West End production of a Shakespeare play. I had noticed at times the actor was facing the back of the stage, which seemed to be particularly so at key points in the plot - or maybe it was more obvious then. And the moment in which Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup almost slipped past without being noticed.
Overall I'm glad I got to see Benedict Cumberbatch on stage. I am very glad we stayed over - had I battled my way up and back on the trains I'm not as sure I'd have thought it worth the effort. I can understand an actor taking the opportunity to play Hamlet, but had it been put on at the National Theatre, for example, I think it would have been better.
