Hamlet

Produced by Paul Maunder at Unity Theatre until 2nd July

"Pree — — Senting... the Greatest Tragedy on Earth".... with these words Paul Maunder's production of Shakespeare's Hamlet begins. After Mr Maunder's 1971 production of Oedipus it would not have been surprising if his production of Hamlet had been "the greatest production tragedy on earth", but such was not the case. Hamlet can survive experimentation and contemporary efforts at re-evaluation more successfully than OEDIPUS. Shakespeare's philosophy and poetry are made of solid stuff; this together with a degree of audience familiarity with Hamlet's form and substance resulted in a nice balance between experiment and play.

The script is, on the whole, intelligently presented, but I was occasionally annoyed to sometimes lose track of the meaning as a main speech blurred into inaudibility.

The presentation of the play as a performance put on by a travelling circus was a nice idea (a play within a play) and from this the rather simplistic characterisations follow quite naturally. All characters are costumed to bring out what, in the producer's eyes, is their essential feature: thus the black - garbed tightrope walker plays Hamlet, the white and fluffy trapeze artiste plays Ophelia, the lion tamers play Claudius and Gertrude, the clown plays Polonius, while the variety artists play Rosencrantz and Guildernstern. There are no developed characterisations: Hamlet's former fellow student Claudius is presented as a figure of generalised authority; Ophelia, played intelligently clearly, and with pathos by Denise Maunder remains a player playing a player playing Ophelia, while Hamlet is presented as a collage of generalised Hamletish qualities.

Within this framework the cast performs well. Jeff Rowe, as Hamlet, looked good in the part, and performed well except when he started to shout, when he lost projection. Gael Anderson as Gertrude and Frank Edwards as Claudius also were more successful in their passive than in their active moments, though both gave enjoyable performances. John Anderson was a good clown - cum Polonius, Jim Hewitson performed with fire as Laertes, while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were delightfully played by Johnathan Dennis and Olwen Tayler. Michael Bajko performed powerfully in his ambivalent and ubiquitous role as ghost cum player king cum Fortinbras while in his additional role as ringmaster served to link the play to the circus world... His function seemed to serve as a vague kind of fate figure: there at the beginning, in the middle and the end.

There is intelligent and interesting use of space; this, together with the periodic trumpet and drum flurry, the revolving throne, the stark circus spot lighting, the cracks of the ringmasters whip as well as the continual presence of the whole cast on stage in their brightly coloured circus costumes took, and continually re-caught, the attention of the audience.

The circus element was never entirely convincing; Hamlet the tightrope walker opening the second half with "to be or not to be" was just too much of a put-on, and Ophelia was never at ease on the rope ladder. She used the trapeze more like a garden swing, which was also a bit corny. Overall though, an interesting and intelligent production well worth seeing and listening to for yourself.

— Rod Jenkins