By Natalie Krafft
On Thursday, November 5, the National Theatre Live broadcasted its showing of Hamlet all across the world, entertaining thousands of Shakespeare lovers. Yavapai College offered a showing.
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragic plays. It is centered around the title character Hamlet, whose father, the King of Denmark, has died by the start of the play. Hamlet’s mother marries his uncle in less than two months after the king’s death. Later on, a couple of guards come to Hamlet reporting a ghost that looks like it’s the dead king; when Hamlet goes to investigate, he finds out that it really is the spirit of his father and that the king had been murdered by Hamlet’s uncle. Hamlet sets off to avenge his father’s death while going slowly mad.
This Hamlet, directed by Lyndsey Turner, was given a new retro feel. At one point, young Hamlet wears a David Bowie t-shirt and another character uses a film camera. Benedict Cumberbatch, known for his roles as Sherlock in BBC’s Sherlock and as Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness, plays the main character, Hamlet. Cierán Hinds, who played Fin MvGovern in The Road to Perdition, plays the murderous uncle, King Claudius. Leo Bill plays Horatio, the character who ultimately kills Hamlet. Antastasia Hille portrays Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, and Sian Brooke takes the role of Ophelia. Many other brilliant actors and actresses help to make this 400 year old play come to life.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance is what ultimately brings the madness and passion to the play. He portrays the maddening and vengeful Hamlet perfectly, capturing the emotions set by Shakespeare, as do all the other performers. Hinds’ ability to play the evil uncle helped the audience to really hate him, and Ophelia was also a real tear jerker. She was betrayed by Hamlet not only when he denounces his love for her, but when he kills her father. Although Hille does play a good bad mom, there is still pity felt for her as she watches her family unravel before her eyes. The cast nailed it and lived up to all the hype.
The director’s choice of setting it in a retro era was interesting. Hamlet takes place 400 years ago and she brought the play up to about the 1950’s. She also has an interesting way of setting up asides when they happen by having all the other characters move in slow motion and have the character making the aside in the spotlight, truly bringing focus onto the aside.
However, there was one slightly confusing part which happens after Part I of the showing. In all of the set’s entrances, huge amounts of black…something… blow in and the audience goes on break. It doesn’t seem to add much physical change other than when Ophelia is getting buried and when Hamlet is captured by pirates and sort of lives in nature. Whether it represents the dark times that fall upon Denmark or the darkness that has consumed Hamlet’s heart, we’ll never know.
In terms of how it was handled at Yavapai College, it was a little confusing. Some people were made to think that we would be out of there by 8:30 pm. Others thought that they’d have to sit through 4 more 1 ½ hour acts. In reality, it was split up into Acts I, II, and II in Part I and Acts IV and V in Part II which got the long acts out of the way with a 20 minute intermission. Part II was incredibly short and kind of bewildering, especially after sitting through three long acts.
Having it this way made it feel as if we were marathoning a whole series on Netflix, which may be completely normal for some, but for others, was quite tiresome. However, the play itself made it worth it. Well executed, exciting, and passionately tragic as all Shakespeare tragedies go, it was absolutely incredible.
Denobis 