After buying backseat tickets many many months ago, I finally got the opportunity to see Jude Law as Hamlet last night at the Wyndhams Theatre. I've not seen Hamlet performed before and, of the Shakespeare I've seen, I do tend to prefer the comedies. I've got such entrenched ideas of the tragedies - which I read and studied to death at university - that any variation angers me. I've also got a thing against people in the audience that laugh because most people tend to be a laughing in a "I understood that particular play on words because I know, read and understand Shakespeare. Therefore I must laugh to make sure everyone around me knows that I got the joke even when the joke isn't laugh-out-loud funny." But that's just my cross to bear and I realise I can be a bit of an arse about these things.Anyhow...this was a solid Hamlet. Nothing spectacular of life-altering but a respectable stab nonetheless. Jude Law was great in the lead role. At first I was put off by his performance, which begins loudly and only increases in volume. He also has a propensity to move his arms about a lot and hop about the stage. Before the First Act was over it seemed as if Law's Hamlet was stark-raving mad already when at least part of the play's tragedy is its central character's sure descent into insanity. What become clear is that underneath this bravado, pomp and circumstance is something altogether sane. During his soliloquys, Law exposes this part of the character to the audience and makes them understand the sadness behind the broken man. The "to be or not to be" soliloquy, delivered by a barefooted Law as he wanders in from the snow, is, as expected, a highlight. This great speech about the gap between thought and feeling is so haunting on the page and just as effective in performance.
The set is regal and bare, plain even but it suits the mood of the play. The lighting is used in particularly effective ways and the production is notable for its careful use of shadow and darkness. Unfortunately, given Law's impressive central performance, the rest of the cast don't really deliver. Penelope Wilton plays Gertrude as a dowdy, nervous woman, thoroughly modern and utterly out of place amongst the other players. I don't necessarily have a problem with Gertrude being played as a sympathetic character (indeed, most of her "crimes" could be read as symptoms of Hamlet's burgeoning madness), but such a homespun interpretation jars completely with the tone of the play itself and ensures that her onscreen death and Hamlet's sudden outpouring of grief as he holds her corpse carries very little emotional weight because of it. Gugu Mbatha-Raw also botches her part and lends precious little to the part of Ophelia.
The underwhelming effect of the rest of the cast does tend to dampen the power of Law's astonishing central performance. It's a solid, impressive production on many levels but, Law aside, it doesn't quite shine.
