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Hiran Abeysekera brings a manic, impulsive, boyish energy to Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Robert Hastie’s uneven production. It’s the first I’ve seen that implies the 30-year-old prince has ADHD or some similar disorder. This arguably makes sense of the character’s mood swings, his introspection and inertia, and his complete inability to read a room or recognise others’ emotional needs.
It also leads Abeysekera to gallop through soliloquies and speeches, furiously riding the rhythm of the verse rather than feeling the words. Hastie’s interpretation is full of novel ideas and subtly revelatory touches but feels ponderous and staid overall. As the second show of Indhu Rubasingham’s tenure at the National, it feels like an exploration of artistic intent, rather than a Hamlet for the ages.
It opens in a grand painted hall at Elsinore castle, filled with formal dining tables for the marriage of Hamlet’s uncle Claudius (an impressive Alistair Petrie) to his mother Gertrude (Ayesha Dharker), glacial and blank, despite being given a new speech to increase her agency. This is a militarised modern state, jittery about foreign incursions, which Claudius governs with a mix of lordly autocracy and supercilious indulgence. Trigger fingers are itchy and fencing practice is the norm.
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The prince himself, in a black suit, earring and stack-heeled boots, is an ironic, impish presence at first – this Hamlet is pretty funny. The appearance of his murdered father’s ghost prompts a yelp of excitement and fear and completely unbalances him. He’s a showoff, craving centre-stage attention, harried by his inability to embrace the leading role of avenger that’s been thrust upon him.
His costume-changes, including a Blockbuster Video sweatshirt and a ruff and tailcoat, are affectations, poses. For the theatre-trivia nerds, his t-shirt slogan “Tobacco and Boys” is a quote from a Christopher Marlowe poem, and possibly a smug nod to Born with Teeth, the current West End show from the other major national company, the RSC, which imagines Shakespeare and Marlowe as collaborators and possible lovers.
Although Hamlet’s torment drives the play forward – Abeysekera isn’t the only one who rushes through the lines – Hastie’s direction feels slow, almost stately. The play-within-a-play, which should feel full of tension, is a dull and meandering spoof of mic-ed up, bare-bones theatre (another in-joke, perhaps, at the expense of director Jamie Lloyd or Katie Mitchell).
There’s little urgency to Hamlet’s confrontations with Claudius and Gertrude. The text has been decorously snipped rather than aggressively pruned. Ben Stones’s design, suggesting that Elsinore is a grand, velvet-curtained prison for Hamlet, feels oppressive and confining for the audience too.
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Yet there are many fine details in places. The duel at the end is one of the most convincing and hectic I’ve ever seen. Having Siobhán Redmond strikingly deliver the First Player’s Hecuba speech emphasises the way patriarchal violence impacts women. Claudius, having stormed through the emptied onstage auditorium, turns to deliver his confession to vacant chairs. There’s an amusing running joke about how much an onstage character can hear another’s asides.
Geoffrey Streatfield’s ukelele-strumming Polonius is an unusually nuanced, sympathetic figure, doting on his son Laertes and daughter Ophelia, even if crashingly insensitive to their feelings. Ophelia is played by Francesca Mills with great delicacy, wit and physical precision. Mills is a superb classical actor and her mad scene – in which she, too, brandishes a rapier – is as wrenching as Polonius’s spasming, blood-drenched death. Tom Glenister is a warm and human Laertes. By contrast, Rosencranz and Guildenstern are silly-ass poshos and Tessa Wong’s Horatio is a cypher.
As an admirer of Hastie’s work and of Rubasingham’s plans for the National, I wanted to like this more. Abeysekera, who won an Olivier Award for Life of Pi and who owned the National’s huge Olivier stage in The Father and the Assassin in 2022, is a fine actor. But Hamlet is as much a challenge for a young performer as Lear is for an older one, and it’s one he’s not yet entirely up to.
Until 22 Nov, nationaltheatre.org.uk
