This isn’t purely a matter of acting, either. At the Lyttelton, Tim Hatley’s set design was a stroke of genius. Filling the enormous stage with crates of various sizes, surrounding them with gray windows and walls that rose to the sky in a cruel hybrid of prison and cathedral aesthetics and topping it all with a series of candle chandeliers which could retreat to the heights of the theater or lower to ground level singly or in battalions, Hatley effectively literalized the boxed-in nature of Hamlet’s privileged world. At the Wilbur, unfortunately, all that remains is a miniaturized version of a set designed for a far larger stage. The actors look packaged rather than contained. Paul Pyant’s lighting still brilliantly illuminates the stage in myriad ways, from morning in a church to dawn on a cliff-top, but now there is a distracting dichotomy between the effectiveness of the lighting and the ineffectiveness of the set. To a certain extent such problems seem inevitable in an international tour, but one would hope a better sense of scale could be reached in reconfiguring the set.

Nevertheless, at the center of it all remains Simon Russell Beale’s glorious performance. He has grown uneven with the various changes that have happened around him, but even at his worst he is a sight to behold. Most performers have it written into their contracts that they do no more than one production of Hamlet in a day. More would be too draining, both emotionally and physically. And yet, Beale has been playing the Dane for nearly a year now. For some such a run might be no trouble at all. But for a performer who so completely slides inside of a character as abused and abusive as Hamlet it is no surprise that his stamina may flag ever so slightly. The emphasis here must be on the slightly, though. Beale remains a marvel. To watch him in action is to witness something incredible: the steady and graceful transformation of a myth into a man and a monument into a story. We all know the tale of Hamlet, even if we think we don’t. But none of us has ever known it like this before.

HAMLET

written by

William Shakespeare