Off-B'way Review: Hamlet at BAM

Hiran Abeysekera in Hamlet.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Is Hamlet actually mad? That’s a question that has bedeviled scholars since the first performance of Shakespeare’s greatest play and is rarely addressed in modern productions. Most stagings I have seen (at least 20 on stage, film or TV that I can recall) assume that the Melancholy Dane’s antic disposition is a put-on job to distract from his investigation of his uncle Claudius murdering the king, Hamlet’s father. Robert Hastie’s elegant, somewhat flawed production imported from the National Theater to BAM’s Harvey stage, leaves the question of the hero’s sanity open and thus delivers an intriguing and challenging interpretation of one of the world’s most produced classics. 

Set in an opulent ballroom (Ben Stones designed the majestic sets and smart costumes, creatively lit by Jessica Hung Han Yun) and starring a youthful, frenetic lead (vibrant Hiran Abeysekera), this Hamlet takes a fresh, different approach to a familiar classic and finds new insights. 

Hiran Abeysekera and Matthew Cottle in
Hamlet. Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Take for example the closet scene wherein Hamlet murders the elderly advisor Polonius mistaking him for the treacherous Claudius. Without revealing any spoilers, Hastie’s staging is truly shocking and surprising, causing the audience to doubt Hamlet’s sanity…and perhaps their own. Hastie then has the Dane address empty air rather than the actor playing the ghost of his father (as per usual), further complicating our perceptions. Was the ghost an illusion the whole time, a figment of Hamlet’s fevered imagination? 

Francesca Mills and Hiran Abeysekera
in Hamlet.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

There are numerous other liberties and alterations which deepen the portrayals of the characters. The most blatant change is the position of the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, undoubtedly the most famous speech in all of world theater. Hastie skips right over it when the monologue usually occurs—early in the play just before Hamlet encounters Ophelia in her clandestine efforts to spy on him. I spent most of the second act wondering where the famous lines would resurface. When they finally did towards the end of the play, the new setting made sense since the speech questions the futility of existence and the possibility of suicide. The speech now takes place closer to Hamlet’s encounters with “self-slaughter” (that of Ophelia) and his own tragic end. 

Hastie also adds an implied gay romantic connection between Hamlet and his school chum Guildenstern (Robert Icke did a variation on this theme in his production at the Park Avenue Armory in 2022 with a female Guildenstern.) The hero’s bisexuality is further hinted at with the choice of one of his T-shirts which reads “Tobacco and Boys” (his two vices?). This choice deepens the hero’s sense of betrayal when his schoolmates are assigned to deliver him to death in England.

Hiran Abeysekera is an energetic Hamlet, bubbling so full of rage and anguish he leaps about the stage like a gazelle. He captures the hero’s ambivalent attitudes towards his role as an avenger, clearly expressing the young prince’s doubts as to his sanity and rightful place in the world. You can feel his frustration as he rails against himself for not taking a clear course like the young Fortinbras who is marching forward in battle. However, we do miss a feeling of attachment for Ophelia and his mother Gertrude. 

Joe Bolland, Francesca Mills, Mary Higgins,
Tom Glenister, and Matthew Cottle in Hamlet.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Ophelia is warmly played by Francesca Mills, who happens to be a little person. She carefully charts Ophelia’s descent from merry reveler to madwoman. In her crazy scenes, she dons a pair of fairy wings and dashes about the stage like a frightened child. Her small stature adds to the heartbreak as she is torn apart by warring emotions. Tom Glenister delivers a passionate Laertes, at first boyishly reckless as he drunkenly carries on at the wedding banquet of Claudius and Gertrude (where the guests sing the bawdy ballads Ophelia later ironically wails when she is driven to distraction). Then he is blistering and hard-bitten when calling for revenge for his father’s death. Tessa Wong is a compassionate Horatio, while Hari MacKinnon and Joe Bolland make Rosencrantz and Guildenstern more than just pathetic henchmen.

The remainder of the supporting cast are not as strong as they should be. Alistair Petrie’s lukewarm Claudius, Ayesha Darker’s stately but cold Gertrude and Matthew Cottle’s dignified but humorless Polonius fail to make much of an impact.  

We do not quite get the sense of Hamlet’s deep love for his murdered father (Ryan Ellsworth is not a particularly scary ghost) or the intrigues within the court at Elsinore. Yet Hastie’s innovations allow us to see this oft-told tale with new eyes. So this is a mixed Hamlet but even an uneven production of the world’s greatest play brings rewards and is worth your time.

April 19—May 17. The National Theater production at BAM Strong Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY. Running time: two hours and 50 mins. including intermission.