Not, But Perhaps Can Come to, Good

At last I got a chance to see the over-hyped (or is that o'er-hyped?) RSC production of Hamlet in the West End. David Tennant, alas, was by then out of commission, having been incapacitated by a back injury some days earlier, and Edward Bennett was thus given the opportunity to make a name for himself, even as he faced the enormous, if not entirely dignified, challenge of satisfying a gaggle of gleeful gigglers salivating for the Doctor.

Bennett's performance, ultimately, like the production as a whole, was unfinished - at times indecisive, an epithet better applied to the Dane himself than to the team behind his portrayal. Unsure who Hamlet was, where he was coming from, what he wanted and why, Bennett attempted to answer some of the most fundamental questions in the Western Canon with the wavering ambiguity of a schoolboy caught without a proper grasp of his homework. He is to be partially forgiven, after all; he likely did not have the time to engage as fully with the part as if he were cast from the start. But one is forced to wonder what role the director could have played in all this nebulousness if the basic questions of Hamlet's madness and intent were left unanswered in the production.

And much of the responsibility for this production's shortcomings does indeed fall on director Gregory Doran. He has several excellent ideas - the use of a mirrored set, which begins to crack at a pivotal point in the plot, is to his credit, as well as to that of designer Robert Jones. But here again Doran loses interest halfway through; the shattered-mirror motif is never expanded upon, and the various deaths that follow are portrayed with such aesthetic disunity (and logical disunity - the stately Claudius takes mere moments to die after drinking from the poisoned cup, whereas the far smaller Gertrude lingers for several lines) that one wonders if Doran had any unifying vision at all. The nebulous period dress does not help - when Bennett emerges to deliver "to be or not to be," he turns up in jeans and a red T-shirt, a breaking of the fourth wall that, whether intentional or no, takes us nearly as out of the performance as his reappearance in Alpine gear in the final act. Without a clear sense of period, the issue of what is at stake - can Ophelia's virginity really be that precious in a world so modern Laertes has condoms in his suitcase? And, if not, does that negate some of the warnings she receives by rendering them useless protective-relative aphorisms? - is unresolved.

Some outstanding performances do work against their direction, however. Oliver Ford Davies as a blusteringly comic Polonius threatens to walk off with the production, although his interpretation has far less pathos than Sam Waterson's show-stealing interpretation at New York's Shakespeare in the Park earlier this year. (Davies's performance, by contrast, likely contributed to one novice's bathroom-queue review of the production: "I had no idea what was going on, but this play sure is funny!") Penny Downie's immaculately costumed Gertrude is also brilliant; the tragedy is hers, not Hamlet's, in the second half. Patrick Stewart is solid, if restrained, as Claudius, while Mariah Gale would be a far better Ophelia if she were not instructed to arbitrarily wave her arms about every few moments as if to wave down Fortinbras's aerial invasion.

But there is a haphazard air about the production - from the bizarre blocking to the unfinished analysis of the Prince himself. Nowhere is this more evident than the "Get thee to a nunnery scene," played with curious flatness by Bennett and unresponsive hysteria by Gale. We are unsure if Bennett despises Ophelia or loves her or, as seems likely from his portrayal, is completely apathetic and which one of them Bennett is pushing her away to protect. Michael Stuhlbarg's portrayal of Hamlet at Shakspeare in the Park may have been controversial (this reviewer found him eminently watchable, if quite manic indeed), but his decisive approach to the text rendered the scene curiously pathetic in a turnabout of tradition, as Stuhlbarg aliented Lauren Ambrose's Ophelia in order to save her from himself - a suitably twenty-first century expression of hipster angst. Choice may not be Hamlet's forte, but no actor can play any role, least of all this one, without making a few decisions about whence to approach. Bennett seems too tied up in the echoing imitations of Tennant to clearly tear into the role.

There is likely a story in all this - of the determined youth reined in by the ghosts of past masters, a story whose delicate Oedipal underpinnings prop up not only Hamlet but indeed so much of great art, if Harold Bloom's theories on the anxiety of influence are to be believed. But the result is, nevertheless, a performance unconsummated - we never quite achieve that union between text and vision of which the RSC is clearly so much more than capable.

On a further note, I am quite tired of "undated modern dress" Hamlets that are vaguely political without being remotely exciting - they are nearly as taxing, if now nowhere near as obsequious, as staid full-period pieces. I would, however, very much like to see a Hamlet torn between Protestantism and Catholicism - in set design, if nothing else - between the revenge tragedy and the stoic resignation of the Danish Protestants. It would be curious to see Hamlet at the crossroads of a variety of ideas - imagine "To Be or Not to Be" before a backdrop of Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man." Hamlet as a play of ideas - perhaps more Magic Mountain than Elsinore. But surely worth considering nonetheless.