Stage Review HAMLET RSC 2025
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| Luke Thallon (Hamlet) HAMLET RSC 2025 Photography by Marc Brenner |
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
HAMLET
Directed by Rupert Goold
Overview
It's 1912 and on the deck of an ocean liner a Danish King lies dead under a draped flag of his country. Dignified respects are delivered before his body is cast into the dark and squally ocean waters.
Prince Hamlet, while in mourning for his father feels bitter that his mother, Gertrude had hastily married his father's successor, uncle Claudius. Hamlet's gasping speeches convey how deeply incredulous he finds it all.
Furthermore, after Horatio shares with him the knowledge that a ghostly apparition had been seen by crewmen, Hamlet is then a witness himself to the ghost of his father and he learns from the spirit's own mouth that the reason he had died was because Claudius had poisioned him.
In seeking revenge for his father's murder Hamlet adopts a weird madness, which Polonius (a member of the royal court) thinks is not down to Hamlet's melancholy but due to the young prince's repressed feelings for his daughter, Ophelia. Yet, as part of his ruse however, Hamlet rejects Ophelia.
Hamlet invites a company of players to perform a play where the plot mirrors somewhat the murder of his own father. He invites Claudius and Gertrude along and he watches Claudius closely for any giveaway signs of guilt to surface. His plan succeeds, so Hamlet strikes while the iron is hot and follows up with a visit to his mother's quarters where he confronts her in a scene of passion and rage. In his state of frenzy however, Hamlet, thinking it to be Claudius approaching, accidently kills Polonius.
Claudius adopts a plan of his own to get rid of Hamlet, baiting Polonius' son, Laertes, who is beside himself having lost both his father and his sister, as poor Ophelia, in terrible grief, has drowned.
Chaos rules as an unintended poisoning happens in a mix up, others die by the sword and all this happens on the bow of a sinking ship. What a metaphor!
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| A Production shot of HAMLET Hamlet RSC 2024/25 season Photography by Marc Brenner |
This RSC production presents a Hamlet never seen before on main stage. One can see that the stricken liner Titanic is the inspiration for the set, arguably the plays' script and its fine prose and dialogue is energy enough to tell this ancient tale. Its intense scenes twinned with its wonderful stillness at times does not require an 'all bells and whistles' big stage-direction approach, however, the mammoth bow and its upper level installation representing an ill-fated ship in full sail is an absolute triumph.
Hamlet is a medium-cast play and each and every one of its Shakespearian characters is played with such purpose and intent by the cast members. The scenes require entrances and exits through trap doors and narrow stair wells. Costumes are bloodied and a fight scene is convincing in bringing the drama to a climax.
In the lead role, Luke Thallon's wonderful mannerisms and flamboyancy in his physical performance charts Hamlet's feigned madness descending to actual madness, with such exquisite attention to the speech as he delivers it.
And who doesn't enjoy Shakespeare's play-within-play format? The script itself actually credits Hamlet as The Chorus, because it is he who has arranged the dramatic performance of fiction (albeit to suit his rhetoric) within his own tragic story (of fiction).
The masked players wearing white robes and contrasting black and red additions, mimic a scene and deadly action to hauntingly beautiful music under stage-light in choreographed movement and dance. This is the performance highlight of this version of Hamlet, congratulations to the ensemble.
It is the RSC debut season for Luke Thallon and others, but also a return for those cast in recent RSC productions including Tadeo Martinez who plays Guildenstern this time around. A treat also, to see so many acting professionals altogether in one play, thank you for the safe hands of Anton Lesser (Ghost/Player King), Elliot Levey (Polonius), Jared Harris (Claudius) and Nancy Carroll (Gertrude).
Es Devlin's set is another level and an incredible feat by the production teams to bring to life, one can almost physically experience the sea view and later the motion of the tipping ship.
Review by theatre critic, Debra Hall who attended the 1pm performance of Hamlet at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon on Thursday 20 February
REFERENCES
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production photography 20 February 2025
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Hamlet printed programme
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