Post by Nicholas on Aug 4, 2017 16:25:59 GMT
Isn’t it strange to say that THIS is how to do a Bob Dylan play?
Early on, this Hamlet says “Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt... thaw”. He corrects himself! It’s an almost insignificant moment, but remarkable, and it sets the scene perfectly. What makes this production soar is how fresh it feels, how new, how it turns much of what makes Hamlet Hamlet on its head, for profoundly affecting reasons. And it’s touches like this, teeny performance techniques, that show how sensitively, wonderfully, expertly it’s all been done. I loved this Hamlet – for its freshness, for Icke’s innovativeness, for its intelligence in all aspects. And I loved it for moments like this, a moment of seeming newness, freshness, unexpectedness, and heart.
“Denmark’s a prison”. So says Hamlet, so once said Kott, so bangs on Billington. Here, Icke’s interpretation of that is both wittily up-to-date and relevant to all. This is true of all of Denmark, not just Hamlet’s – it’s a world in which Hamlet is the eavesdropper as much as the eavesdroppee; where Ophelia and Gertrude and Claudius too are as much a victim of this perverted public living as Hamlet; where even Claudius struggles to find a peace he needs, he deserves; where even the Ghost’s appearance is first found through illicit observation; and where, crucially, we’re implicit too.
From the beginning, this is a 24-hour Elsinore, an Elsinore always under watch. It opens with rolling news. It actually opens with CCTV. Before we’ve even gotten into the observation of the play itself, we’re watching observations. Before we’ve even gotten to Hamlet being spied on, Elsinore is being spied on. By the time we get to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern being used as inside access to Hamlet’s mind, the level of observation is almost oppressive. Of course, the key to Hamlet is that he’s observed, and with the TVs on and off, the CCTV always there, the walls like glass barely hiding anything, we’re never allowed to forget this. But the key to Hamlet is that if Elsinore is a prison, Hamlet isn’t the only prisoner. Indeed, this eavesdropping, ever-present Hamlet imprisons Polonius, Claudius and Ophelia as much as they imprison him. It’s a fantastically disconcerting balance, which enriches the supporting characters so much.
And then there’s us. It begins with us watching intrusive news, almost paparazzo like. We then keep watching. And keep watching. And whilst Icke doesn’t suggest the fourth wall isn’t there (mostly), he never lets us forget we’re voyeurs into private grief, intruding into this poor man’s privacy. At some point in the first half, I realised I was feeling really uncomfortable watching this, all due to the way in which there is no escape from observation – that, for his sake, we should look away. But can’t. At a few points, particularly as Scott’s all-too-relatable grief is relayed to the country (and crucially, too, to us eavesdropping in the audience) and Claudius advises him to hide his grief, I was reminded of that photo we all know all too well of the Princes marching behind their mother’s coffin, grief on display, but forced not to feel. When Hamlet jumps into the audience, it suggests an awareness of some audience – not that Hamlet knows he’s in a theatre; just that Hamlet (always on TV, always on CCTV, always on guard) knows that his Denmark is watching him, always, as a prison.
Not to say this is some Brechtian immersive mumbo-jumbo, but (as he did, much less successfully, in his 1984), Icke uses filming and technology and our observation as paying punters to suggest that even the fourth wall has a sense of complicity. It’s canny modernity, not there through pat reference or obvious allusion, but through thematic similarity alone – in the same way that Icke’s Vanya did little explicit to change a lot, this does too. And if I was reminded of the images of the Princes, that’s because I was equally reminded of how often we’re reminded of it as outsiders to the Royal Family, almost forced to watch their lives by the complicity of rolling news. In this Elsinore, I went mad almost watching it. The brilliant thing about Icke’s egalitarian Hamlet is that Elsinore is said egalitarian lead – and through a focus on that, every person here has their own arc, drawn more densely than usual, Hamlet himself only one aspect of this wonderful show.
Amidst this prison, it’s clearly the best ensemble I have ever seen in a Hamlet – I’ve never seen a Hamlet where every arc is so beautifully drawn. Because all of them have such a strong set to bounce off us – such a strong sense of uncertainty – all become more than mere ciphers to Hamlet’s story (as has happened too often in other productions), as all have their own part to play in this peculiar landscape.
The Polonius family (surname?) are such a tight-knit clique that the breakdown of that family, again, is painful to endure. Peter Wight’s performance perfectly judges a parent only his children could love – whilst tedious to outsider Hamlet, there was such affection towards this daft old bear of a man from the two children; the famous line flub, too, hinted at a real darkness there. Luke Thompson had a sensitivity that mirrored his sister, he’s a great actor. Standing out even further, the autonomy Jessica Brown Findlay brings is crushed so much by this oppressive world that her descent into madness is as compelling as Scott’s (and mirrors it nicely too). She’s loving, wise, and sensitive, in a world and at a time where such behaviours are brutalised and crushed – her madness, a still sadness in response to this, is grounded in real heartbreak, real humanity. Findlay, too, has a delightful rapport with Scott – when Hamlet dives into Ophelia’s grave, this was the first time that I believed Hamlet. Aptly, this was an Ophelia for whom death was quite romantic, for whom I felt so afraid.
Even more revelatory was the interplay between Gertrude and Claudius – through their early interactions, the play’s dynamics are wholly shifted. Was the argument of this entire production, actually, that Gertrude should have married Claudius to begin with? Possibly, as this couple very palpably hit it off in a way that made the ‘wrong’ relationship feel that between Gertrude and King Hamlet in the first place. In Wright’s performance, I felt we were watching a man who killed for love and inherited power, instead of a man who killed for power – I found Wright judged that character to a tee – the way that embarrassing dad-dancing and sleeping on the sofa led directly into international negotiations suggested he was never to be a leader proper. Crotty was a perfect match – someone whose sexuality clashes horribly with Rintoul’s ghost’s stiltedness, someone who manages to convince with sensitivity towards Scott, and who truly sizzles alongside Wright – although, equally, someone who reacts with very human horror to the very inhumane actions Wright very inexpertly orders. He was perfect as a sad old man dancing along to Dylan (I have family. I know). From the beginning, Icke repositions the central tragic murder of Hamlet being not about hate, but about love – and more daringly, about true love, reciprocated. It’s is the boldest decision, and it pays dividends – just in beginning with a tacky little dance, Icke repositions the play entirely to be about the destructive nature of love as much as anything else.
And so to our Hamlet? Where Icke’s imprisoning Elsinore works well is using this trap to try and conflate a complex man into one word. We like to condense Hamlets down to one characteristic; but how does one condense a man clearly struggling in grief, observed from every angle, having a great task thrust upon him, struggling with love, all into one word? Scott and Icke play with this. Icke’s Elsinore is the main character here – in the middle of this oppressive, voyeuristic state, how could anyone to thine own self be true? Going through grief, ghastly invasions of privacy, and ghostly visitations, any person would feel a multitude of emotions – and the way Scott’s Hamlet evolves (as too do Ophelia, and Gertrude, and Laertes, and rather movingly even Claudius) is far more complicated than one mere epithet. It makes Scott’s Hamlet feel far more three-dimensional, whilst equally remaining far more penned-in than other Hamlets – it’s this perverse dichotomy which feeds the play its energy. The fact that he’s allowed to correct himself, to be smart sometimes and not others, to be brave sometimes and weak others – perversely, it’s daring to let Hamlet be Hamlet, to let him be contradictory, to let him be human.
“What a piece of work is man!” he cries. “How is this piece put together?” he seems to ask again, and again, and again. If I had to summate him to one word, it would be, wonderfully, “fleshy”. Shakespeare’s Hamlet muses a lot about what death might be like. Scott’s Hamlet becomes biologically fascinated by what death IS like. Touching the ghost did more than elicit an emotional connection – it elicited a tactile connection, too, between living and dead, and that’s what drives this Hamlet. There’s a mirror between touching the dead but spiritual ghost, and later touching the dead but physical Polonius – two tactile encounters with death, one mental and one physical, traumatise this Hamlet, and frankly traumatise us. Later his response to Yorick is that of curious disgust, or disgusted curiosity – through having to be in physical contact with the posthumous plains – and similarly, having to come face-to-face with Ophelia no longer living is much the same.
Hamlet muses about what death might be like again and again and again and again and again. Naturally, he comes to no conclusions. Rather than focus on these maybes, though, Icke and Scott force him to encounter what death IS, in its physical, down-to-earth factions. And forces us to watch. It’s a hard watch, but it’s revelatory.
In being so resolutely about death, though, it’s very much about life – and THAT’s why this production absolutely sings (on the subject of singing – some of Dylan’s best vocals in there too – Desire!). What interests this Hamlet is the material facts about death as much as the mysteries of it – and by being so touchy about this, Hamlet has to be aware of the actualities of living too. And just as Icke repositions the central murder to be not about hate but love, so he repositions the central theme not about death’s uncertainty but life’s certainty.
Scott’s Hamlet’s tactile responses to death only work due to his equally tactile responses to life. His too, too solid flesh fascinates him, as he watches each finger move, each sinew do its work. His relationship with Ophelia is, undoubtedly, physical (as is Gertrude and Claudius). And this show loves every tactile moment of motion, of movement, of life. This is a world in which – whilst death is not the end – the mysteries of death, those mysteries that define these monologues, are tempered by the fact that life matters much much more – death is the absence of movement, a reduction of a man down to his basest lamest materials, whilst life is the joy of motion, of movement, of feeling, of flesh. If this is a Hamlet who loves to move, who loves to touch, who loves to hold and sense and feel, then giving all this up is more than musing on heaven – this matters here and now. Of course there’s still a mystery to death – but there’s an urgency to life.
Why does the end of Hamlet normally move us? Is it because we’re sad to see him die? Is it because we’ve all learnt lessons about the futility of revenge? Last time, it was because I was bored to tears. But this time, it’s because we’d seen death not as what it might be, but what it actually is – not life, not love, just nothing. Has Horatio ever come across as anything but a damp squib, after the melodramatic mayhem of the duel? Yet here, Hamlet’s invocation to live on matters. We’ve seen that there’s an afterlife, but we want to celebrate life first. Here, that juxtaposition of the ghosts going on – the dancing, the forgiveness, the best emotions of life being their legacy; that’s love – and Horatio actually living on, bearing the whips and scorns of time – well, that’s heroism, that’s triumph; that’s life.
We’ve a trend for confining our Hamlets down to that one characteristic we can take away. Once Frances de la Tour was the woman, Jonathan Pryce the haunted madman, David Warner the unknown teenager, Alan Rickman the underpowered braniac; recently Maxine Peake was the woman, Michael Sheen the haunted madman, Ben Whishaw the unknown teenager, Benedict Cumberbatch the underpowered braniac. For goodness sake, “the Grunge Hamlet”. What Icke and Scott seem to argue is that Hamlet is a man, take him in all in all. To observe him perpetually would of course be to drive him insane, as it would anyone – as it seems to do to Ophelia and Claudius and Polonius, victims of Hamlet’s eavesdropping as much as Hamlet is of theirs, here all contenders for protagonist. And to confine him to one characteristic – “ghost/devil, acting/madness, be/not be” – is to rob him of the chance to grieve, to grow, to heal. We see him as we see a whole. This – this all encompassing production – shows him as the man, in the world, in this reality. Other Hamlets I can remember through scenes, through moments, through descriptions – but this Elsinore is one I remember in its totality, in everyone’s totalitarianism, in its inability to be taken down to one element, beyond, surprisingly, life.
Except of course, amidst everything else I’ll take from this Hamlet – its take on eavesdropping, its take on madness, its various loving relationships – one striking thing stands out: it’s a hopeful Hamlet, a Hamlet about love, a Hamlet about life. I loved this Hamlet. Behind every beautiful thing, there’s been some kind of pain – and painful though simply watching this suffering go on is, its end result is one of pure and true beauty.
This Hamlet also has kickass taste in music – as does Claudius. That helps too. Desire at the Harold Pinter Theatre, Street-Legal at the Old Vic – my cup runneth over. Hopefully Nina at the Young Vic will feature this or this, and if someone could organise a showing of Pat Garrett at the BFI, and persuade Anne Marie-Duff’s crow to sing “Every Grain of Sand”, that would be rather nice too.
