Mark Bold

“Hail To The Thief!” Claudius has stolen the crown of Denmark by murdering his brother and hastily marrying his queen. Like one present-day leader, he swaggers with immodest confidence and demands loyalty from those around him - yet, unlike our modern usurper, he is in private ravaged by guilt over his rank offence. Prince Hamlet swears revenge. He seems angered and honest, rather than simply mad. In this staging of Hamlet, the political elements of the play are accentuated and its revenge plot is given primacy with the pace throughout of a taut thriller.

Michael Boyd’s production of Hamlet on the Stratford stage is concentrated in a tight circular space, around which a black stockade keeps out the external world. There is a sparse space inside the arena - little furniture, and then only skeletal chairs and nothing else. He keeps the players in dull colours and greys and blacks, as if to remind us that some are still mourning the murdered king, even though there has since been a royal wedding. At points, it seems the brightest thing on stage is the ghost, or the gravediggers, who stand out of the gloom in a brilliant spectral glow. Only during the Mousetrap, when the travelling players arrive at Elsinore, is the stage splashed with any colour, and then it is primarily red - a slash of bright crimson material that cuts across the stage, and a flood of violent red lighting when Claudius reacts to the allegations in the play-within-the-play.

Hamlet, as played by Toby Stephens, does not mope in the corners of this darkened arena, but at times consumes it with his rage, and his seemingly confident stance. As soon as the play starts, his anger bubbles up in accusations against his uncle and his mother. But it is when the ghost of his father appears that his is fully charged with the responsibilities of his predicament. The ghost seems utterly real, played with astonishing physical presence by Greg Hicks, who also plays the Player King with stylised control, and one of the gravediggers with perfect comic timing. Hamlet has no doubts about his need to avenge the murder. His deliberations on the absurdity of existence and the tragic fate of man, or his disregard for the machinations and fawning words of courtiers and advisers, seem to portray a nature intent on honesty and justice. His distraction is caused by the lies and spin of those around him, rather than being a sign of madness.

Of course, in their knowing or unknowing conspiracy with the bloody plot of Claudius, those in the royal family and its vicinity convince themselves that Hamlet’s unorthodox behaviour is caused by psychological disturbance, rather than the political intrigue he is offended by. His obsession with justice leads to his neglect of Ophelia, and his disregard for the trifles of romantic infatuation is interpreted as madness. The bloated, prolix Lord Chamberlain Polonius cannot stop himself interfering with all the lives around him, forcing opinion and plotting schemes. As played by Richard Cordery, he engages the audience fully with the humour of the part, highlighting Shakespeare’s slight disdain for this meddlesome character. Intrigues unravel among almost everyone on stage. To rebel against his murderous uncle, Hamlet must rebel against all. This is the strength of Stephens’ performance, in drawing a confidence out of the character and making clear his intention to obtain justice.

Hamlet is a muddled story that is focussed on the interplay between honesty and illusion. The ghost who urges the prince to avenge his father is seen by Hamlet’s colleagues, yet when it appears as he is together with his mother, she cannot see it. Hamlet’s ranting is taken for nonsense by some, yet Polonius recognizes its actual honesty - ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.’ Perhaps he detects that the apparent madness may be part of a plot to retaliate against the king; he is well enough practiced in the art of subterfuge to understand this. And, of course, Hamlet’s use of the players’ illusions in their stageshow is to bait Claudius into honesty. His famous soliloquies are often painfully honest deliberations over the nature of reality, and of humankind’s self-illusion over its place in the universe. All the way through this contemporary production, it is these conflicting aspects of being and appearance that are pursued by a Hamlet that is a very real and very strong lead character.

As the end approaches, the tension tightens - Laertes seeks to avenge his father’s murder, almost mirroring Hamlet’s own situation. And yet, at this moment, Shakespeare takes a moment for perhaps the deepest meditation in the play, and the moment of lightest humour, as Hamlet, gripping the jester Yorick’s skull, weighs up the paradoxical tragic fate and yet frivolous nature of each short life. From there, the tragedy unfolds in a brilliantly staged fencing match, and the gloom of the claustrophobic stage is lifted with the arrival of Fortinbras, suddenly throwing the stage into silhouette and seeming to overwhelm the domestic drama that has unfolded in such a tragic fashion.

HAMLET, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon