Hamlet - 3rd Year Academy

At the risk of being banished forever for getting off the subject of the King Lear review;

Went to see the third year theatre students production of Hamlet at the Academy last night. I've seen about five productions of Hamlet in my short life and this one left them all for dead.

The set was incredible, made up to look like a Kosovo-esque warzone with a three part moving set. The overall costume design was striking and the acting was amazing. The guy who played Hamlet was so focused, so talented, he managed all the nuances of the character with ease.

I recommend it and play close attention to the pink haired firebrand playing Laertes(?), he is the well know and loved and out of site inproved Ben Sutton, looking none the worse for his Academy training.

Four and a half stars. Hurry, it closes on Sunday.

LEAH

This is somewhat belated - the show closed a while back - but I wanted to concur with much of what Leah had to say about this show.

The set design was very striking. The opening tableau for the second scene struck just the right chord of power, decadence and decay. The lighting design, or rather moving shadows, were reminiscent of a slew of recent sci-fi movies and this overall effect was ably assisted by the stark opening appearance of Hamlet-ala-Keanu-in-Matrix.

Like the Matrix the production was memorable for its special effects: plenty of blood packs, flashing lights, loud sound effects, running, dripping water, innumerable trapdoors and glorious smoke drifts all timed and played to perfection. If the play at times groaned under the weight of these inventions, the energy of the actors lifted the production and most of the time it truly soared.

I'll happily second Leah's commendation of Hamlet and Laertes. The former was played with all the pent up sexuality and frustration of the socially outcast, Columbine High, gothic adolescent coming into adulthood. Where some others in the cast at times piled contrivances onto the text, either explaining it away in performance or departing from it altogether with interpretations verging on the self indulgent, the actor playing Hamlet for the most part trusted the text to deliver what was necessary with a minimum of elaboration and device. The actor playing Laertes showed similar faith and the audience was rewarded by performances that suited "the action to the word, the word to the action".

I couldn't help feeling at times that each member of the company was seeking to stamp their individual mark on the production, whatever their role. The effect for me, was very uneven in performance. I felt each actor delivered some stunning moments - and i do mean every member of this very talented cast - but often these highlights jarred as they were delivered almost in isolation from the text, the moment and the others on stage.

In light of this, I was struck by the fact that Hamlet's famous advice to the actors was entirely cut from the performance - perhaps deliberately signifying a departure from traditional interpretation. If so, the text came back to bite the players in the end. Horatio's penultimate speech might have been an ironic commentary on some aspects of the production:

"Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th'inventors' heads."

"The play's the thing" advises Hamlet. He was right.

Cheers
Grant