The idea of setting Hamlet im what seems like a hospital/prison is a clever one. Walking in the audience through corridors which make you feel like you're truly entering such a place is inspired and draws you in before a word is spoken. Perhaps this suggests they are hospitalised because they are all mad and as the play evolves, this is quite possible to believe. Michael Sheen is excellent with his controlled anger and madness and there is a good ensemble around him. The staging is stunning, particularly the final scenes and I liked some of the clever use of actors, such as Ophelia and Polonius re-appearing as Laerteas dies. A thoughtful, intelligent production.
- Paul Wallis
14 Jan 12
London Hamlet productions are going to be UTSOT for a very long time. By UTSOT, I mean, "Under the Shadow of Tennant," and by that I mean, in my judgement, Tennant's RSC Hamlet, which I was lucky enough to see on it's London transfer, was perfect in every way. That said, Michael Sheen is an excellent Hamlet, as facile as Rory Kinnear with words, and as hearty as Jude Law in his demeanour. He also possesses, by the end of the production, an eerie otherworldly quality that distinguishes him. The production design fails Sheen in the first half, so barren (just a few chairs and a back room behind glass) that it draws attention to the play's artifice, fails to draw the eye, encouraging some unintentional Brechtian alienation. In the second half, the appearance of a deep pit, and a dug grave, rectifies this, providing a dark focus, both metaphorical and physical for the action. The production is a slow-burner, starting in a leisurely minimalist manner (emphasising a doctor-patient treatment subtext), but gathers pace incrementally until the play-within-a-play scene, which is punchy, utilising imagery of snakes and phalluses to the tune of Roy Orbison's "Crying." From this moment, the production never looks back, and acquires a hypnotic power that continues until the final moment. James Clyde is unfussy and serpentine as Claudius, Sally Dexter is emotive yet regal as Gertrude, and Vinette Robinson reveals a talent for singing and musicianship. To my taste, Polonius and Laertes were too underplayed. All in all, an interesting Hamlet, with a great central performance, leading the audience (including Jo Brand, when I saw it) to give Sheen a mighty, deserved, round of applause. - steveatplays
24 Dec 11
Isn't it fascinating how some production can be responded to in such violently different ways - and this is one such!
Personally I found this version of hamlet fascinating, disturbing, illuminating and deeply moving, and I stood to applaud, for the first time ever in a very busy theatregoing life!
The psychiatric setting was fascinating - how do we assess another person's sense of reality? and what is madness? I thought resurrescting Polonius and Ophelia as other, minor characters, was a brilliant idea, and added to our sense of Hamlet's bewilderment as to (or what)who he was seeing. This also led, for me, to the most poignant moment in this production. Laertes, dying, was cradled between Polonius as the priest and Ophelia as the clerk. When he died, they fell backwards, dead too. I've been thinking about the implications of that marvellous bit of theatre ever since!
- Gill B
21 Dec 11
It is testament to the genius of Shakespeare that he can survive almost all manner of directorial conceits. Almost all, but not Ian Rickson's absurdly egotistical reinterpretation. Almost everything about this is wrong, from the beginning when Hamlet himself speaks the words of the ghost to a female Horatio, through to an outrageous conclusion that had me seething with frustration and barely suppressed fury. Rickson has chosen to set the play in a secure mental hospital implying that Hamlet is genuinely insane. So, are the court at Elsinore doctors, fellow patients or the products of an implausibly detailed dream - Hamlet as seen by Pam Ewing? It's too tedious to list the ways that this makes no sense whatsoever: the only way I avoided walking out was to ignore Rickson's "vision" and focus on the text. Thankfully Michael Sheen seems to have taken the same approach and so rescues this from 1-star oblivion. His is an edgy and dangerous Hamlet but in no way insane. Even though he is too old for the role Sheen provides an epic performance in an otherwise deeply misguided and wrongheaded production. - David Baxter
15 Dec 11
It’s taken me a couple of days to write about this because it’s taken me a couple of days to reflect and decide what I think about it!
What I am absolutely clear about is that The Young Vic Theatre and the play’s director Ian Rickson win all the prizes for bravery, ambition and sheer balls. Messing with the bard’s most famous play? Quelle horreur! Rickson’s ’big idea’ is that it’s all in Hamlet’s head…..or our heads? We enter a mental institution, on a pretty long and impressive ’journey’, where the whole play takes place. It’s Hamlet -The Story-The Characters-The Words, but not Hamlet as we know it.
The first half is rather ponderous and slow with lots of Pinteresque silences Shakespeare didn’t write, but it picks up pace significantly in the second half. When it’s running at full steam, it’s a thrilling psychological ride with a couple of clever and brilliant coup d’theatre. Hamlet has never been as confused, damaged, tortured, lost, persecuted…..
Michael Sheen lives up to expectations as the Danish prince – an intelligent and often thrilling performance. There’s an excellent supporting cast, with Sally Dexter capturing Gertrude’s love for both her son and her new man and Vinette Robinson providing a fascinating emotional rollercoaster as Ophelia. Jeremy Herbert creates an all too believable institution with a significant contribution from Adam Silverman’s lighting (and lack of!).
This is the Hamlet that seems to be dividing people, and in my case dividing me….but I have nothing but admiration for the theatre and the creative team – it would have been so easy to churn out another traditional Hamlet-as-star-vehicle like the RSC and Donmar. Challenging stuff indeed. - Gareth James
24 Nov 11
Sheen is gripping but the production and the rest of the acting is very poor. I agree with all those who have commented that the idea of setting the play in an asylum makes nonsense of the play. Also, casting women as Horatio and Rosencrantz (or Guildenstern) makes a mockery of the play in which the only relationships that Hamlet has with women are his mother and Ophelia. - fred
20 Nov 11
At first, for the first half, I quite liked the concept and find the new approach refreshing.
But they did not run all the way with it and the second half, always the trickier, became a mixture of gimmick and confusion.
It was not helped by pretty poor supporting performances (Ophelia excepted).
Sheen was very good as expected if often too shouty and manic (and not in the energetic way of Tennant's Hamlet) though it was in keeping with the rest of the play.
But that wasn't enough to make a success of what could have been a very interesting take. - Pegasus
16 Nov 11
Best Hamlet I've ever seen - and I saw Kinnear, Tennant and Law. None of them compare to this one: haunting, disturbing and it feels throughout like a new play. People who don't get are hung up on it 'making sense' not on its thrilling luminosity - and the quality of the acting and verse speaking which is much, much better than any other Shakespeare production in the last five years. Sheen is colloquial, energised and incredible. GO. - John Hortins
14 Nov 11
For me this is the turkey of the year. I was really looking forward to this but the new apprach is pretentious and totally wrong. Sheen is is just terrible and delivers the famous lines very badly. This production got it all wrong. Hamlet set in a lunatic asylum. Oh please! - Ellie
12 Nov 11
Setting Hamlet in an asylum was a terrible idea and it doesn't work, totally pointless, the tragedy is already there, doesn't have to develop, which defeates the purpose of the story. Michael Shee is absolutely dreadful imho. Really over the top, his delivering of lines is weird and his intense -give me an Award- look is very strange and looks quite fake. - Barbara
11 Nov 11
Problem is that if Hamlet is bonkers from start to finish, there is no tragedy. Claudius doesn't seem to be guilty of anything much except removing a dangerous lunatic heir to the throne which in the circumstances is probably rather sensible. In the end it's just a sacrifice of what could have been one of the great Hamlets of our time on the altar of directoral conceit. Full of sound and fury but unfortunately not signifying much. - JeffW
10 Nov 11
Gasped. Cried. Laughed (especially at the brilliant re-imagining of Polonius as a psychiatrist losing it). Was provoked to think. Marvelled at the great writing (rarely so clearly or intelligently spoken). What more could we want? - spj
10 Nov 11
An extraordinary achievement. The overnight critics have reacted as they would to a demanding new play - with a mixture of bafflement and anger that their favourite Elizabethan cliches aren't being recycled. Magnificent and moving. - ensat
10 Nov 11
Worked for me.
Good to see everyone referring to Richard Eyre/Jonathan Pryce version (Royal Court, not RSC) a reminder that you can do what you want to this play (with integrity) and it will bounce back for someone else. If you really wonder about liberties, last year's Mercury Theatre presentation (in Macedonian) started off with the soldiers on the battlements (or rather, under a platform) naked. And Horatio. Naked. Yup... (got better after that). - RL
10 Nov 11
It took a moment to understand the approach as it asked the audience to forget the traditionally approach. I am not a fan of bleak modern versions, but absolutely loved the new concept that worked astounishingly well. Just the real foils (in a mental asymlum?) should have been toys (like the red and yellow plastic swords in Pete Postlewaite's Lear)to keep up with the transfer. Very bold, so no surprise if purists struggle to follow. Sheen is absolutely brilliant as he often plays against the famous lines. After several more traditional productions a fresh spproach for the more open-minded ones among the audience.
Elisabeth - Elisabeth
09 Nov 11
I am amazed I stuck it it out to the bitter end, something, perhaps, about seeing a fascination in the grotesque? But for sheer grotesque liberty taking with the Bard this production takes the proverbial biscuit! I suppose Ian Rickson thought the idea of setting it in an asylum was a good one. Well, one must suppose he did so after consuming liberal quantities of mind bending drugs. The trouble is once they wear off grim reality takes hold and he ought to have considered the fact that most of the audience won't have had the benefit as he must surely have had. Michael Sheen, god bless him, tried every trick in the book with this Hamlet but was ultimately defeated as one hideous conceit was piled upon another which just made the hole he was digging deeper. Even the designer, in a stroke of genius, actually provides a huge hole for them to do it in! Talk about outrageous fortune! 1/10 see me! - rds
