Escaping Hamlet
Shakespeare's masterpiece is re-thought yet again, this time with motorbikes and postmodernism
| 20 Aug 2007
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the most comprehensive theatre script in the Western canon. But the makers of this production have clearly decided that the time is ripe for a rethink, and Escaping Hamlet has dutifully made its appearance. It is not the first or last rethink, and certainly not the best of its kind, but its got some promising aspects.
Hamlet and his drama buddies are gibbering, narcissistic, self-proclaimed post-moderns. They behave like selfish undergraduates, consumed by acting and travel. They carp – tediously – about Molière and Chekhov. When Hamlet sets up some silent theatre to show off his knowledge of Claudius’s fratricide (about a third of Shakespeare’s plot is intact, albeit not in the right order), he is applauded by his amazed uncle: “I admit it! But you are a genius, Hamlet! I need to be punished! You must kill me!” Then the plot goes off the rails. Hamlet jumps on a motorcycle with his girlfriend Kate, heads for Paris, and still finds himself up to his neck in a familiar tragedy.
The production is a mess, and most of the performances are not much better. The script makes no improvements on the original play. There are however, great possibilities in the image of Hamlet and Kate whizzing across Europe on an invisible motorbike. Ironically, to realise this, they’d have to push harder to escape the supervising presence of Mr Shakespeare.
Hamlet and his drama buddies are gibbering, narcissistic, self-proclaimed post-moderns. They behave like selfish undergraduates, consumed by acting and travel. They carp – tediously – about Molière and Chekhov. When Hamlet sets up some silent theatre to show off his knowledge of Claudius’s fratricide (about a third of Shakespeare’s plot is intact, albeit not in the right order), he is applauded by his amazed uncle: “I admit it! But you are a genius, Hamlet! I need to be punished! You must kill me!” Then the plot goes off the rails. Hamlet jumps on a motorcycle with his girlfriend Kate, heads for Paris, and still finds himself up to his neck in a familiar tragedy.
The production is a mess, and most of the performances are not much better. The script makes no improvements on the original play. There are however, great possibilities in the image of Hamlet and Kate whizzing across Europe on an invisible motorbike. Ironically, to realise this, they’d have to push harder to escape the supervising presence of Mr Shakespeare.