Taking on Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a daunting task for any director or actor, with its iconic speeches, its multiple theatrical interpretations, and its largely passive titular character. Any production of Hamlet is expected to interpret text in a new way while staying faithful to the original. Hart House’s 2015 offering does relatively well with the former, creating parallels in Hamlet that make one consider scenes and characters in a new light. Its faithfulness to the text, however, is compromised by setting “Hamlet” unnecessarily in a modern context and removing or ignoring several moments of character ambiguity. The result is a solid but underwhelming performance, worth watching more for the superb cast and interesting parallels than for a serious exploration of Hamlet’s broader themes.
Director, Paolo Santalucia, like many directors when tackling Shakespeare for a modern audience, opted for a Hamlet in a contemporary setting. The technique is often used as an opportunity to explore a theme or idea in more detail—for example, exploring the theme of “surveillance” through the use of security cameras, or exploring Claudius’ character by placing the play in the cutthroat corporate world. The Hart House production does not attempt to do so, instead making the modern elements a casual artistic decision. The modern setting provided an opportunity to use a combination of musical styles, creating a music theme for certain characters such as Claudius (Cameron Johnston) or the ghost (also Johnston) and providing scenes with distinct moods. The modern setting also allowed for the casting of actresses in the role of minor male characters, such as Nicole Hrgetic’s casting for the part of Voltemand. The setting, admittedly, strengthened Hamlet’s (Dan Mousseau) characterization as callous and revenge-obsessed—a prime example of this characterization being the iMovie Hamlet shows the court. Still, such moments were few and far between, more commonly used to provide moments of extra-textual humour. Hamlet uses an ipod, for example, to ignore Polonius, until finally deigning to pop out an ear bud.
This is not to say that the text did not bring insight to the play. Shortly before Ophelia’s (Sheelagh Daly) death is announced, she carries a sheet across the stage as the ghost had done earlier. In this case, the parallel acts are used to foreshadow her death. Hamlet’s treatment of his mother (Annemieke Wade), in terms of Mousseau’s delivery of his lines and his accompanying actions, is eerily similar to his treatment of Ophelia; the production continually emphasizes this link, showing Hamlet’s anguish about his mother as directly provoking his cruelty towards Ophelia. Several actors are given dual roles, creating more subtle links between certain parts—Nikki Duval plays a politician, messenger, and player; Rosencratz (Alan Shonfield) is also a judgemental priest, and Johnston’s Claudius also portrays the ghost.
The characters themselves are all superbly acted, but limited somewhat by the production’s seeming disinterest in allowing for character ambiguity. To be sure, many of these characterizations are consistent with both the text and audience expectation, but Hamlet provides several opportunities to show other sides of these characters, many of which were not utilized or even cut.
Despite this, the overall feeling at the end of the production is one of satisfaction. The cast and crew fully utilize Hart House’s theatre auditorium to create an immersive experience. The actors frequently treat the auditorium as an extension of the stage, speaking lines from across the room and constantly chasing after each other. There is even a small moment of breaking the fourth wall, as Hamlet prompts the audience with the famous question, “Am I a coward?” The emotional highs and lows are played beautifully by the actors and are staged for maximum effect by the crew; there are moments of breathless laughter, heart-wrenching sadness, and solemn contemplation. Overall, the production, for all its flaws, is well worth seeing.
