Last Saturday, the Icarus Theatre Collective brought their week-long stint at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre to a close. The company have been touring their new production of Hamlet in the UK and Ireland since late 2016, which they describe as an interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic “for the Game of Thrones generation”. At the last performance of the run, an eager crowd awaited the classic play in a subdued atmosphere.
The set is simple, yet effective, and immediately draws parallels with Game of Thrones. The stage’s centrepiece is two thrones adorned with sword blades, which are set high on the top of a marbled structure of various levels of staircases in black and white, framed by four dominating Romanesque pillars. The structure is surrounded by hangings of the Danish flag in various sizes. The colour palette brings a game of chess to mind, conjuring up an interpretation of the country’s politics as a cruel game, and the striking reds of the flags fill the stage with bloody connotations.
This use of space is excellent, but this simple staging coupled with other aspects of the production make it a better fit for a smaller theatre, as the sets seem dwarfed within the vastness of the Bord Gáis and the actors unable to fill the acoustics, with speeches being difficult to hear at times. The only music in the production is provided by backing tracks, serving no real aesthetic purpose and merely being used to facilitate scene changes.
The company comprises of just nine actors, and so to meet the demands of Shakespeare’s original cast, each actor must play multiple roles. Their transition is marked by a change of capes. The biggest aspect of textual abridgement is the removal and shortening of most of the main soliloquies in the text, along with the removal of Fortinbras.
Multiple scenes are often condensed into a single scene, serving a logistical purpose in reducing what would be an uncut six hours of running time down to two and a half. It also makes the production seem fast-paced and action packed, focusing on the play’s violent aspects, thus making it exciting, brutal and gory. I personally felt disappointed with the treatment of soliloquies, considering that, for example, Hamlet’s iconic “to be or not to be” speech was delivered by Ophelia. This approach removed the intellectual depth and moral complexity ingrained into Shakespeare’s original play, which then extended into the relationships between key figures.
It’s difficult to engage with or feel for the characters, and Claudius’ presence isn’t as strong as it should be for any true villain. As a result, many of the significant moments of pathos in the play feel anticlimactic and disappointing, as the audience is not invested enough to care about major deaths.
The most effective scene is Claudius’ prayer scene, with the staging evoking a heightened sense of drama. The actors remove their capes, and wearing white shirts, they represent nondescript conscience figures that physically restrain Hamlet as he feigns an attempt to assassinate his uncle. It is at this point that the stage dramatically blacks out to allow for an interval.
Director Max Lewendel brings a unique and fresh perspective in his use of female actors for the major roles of Horatio and Rozencratz, with Ophelia and Gertrude being the only other women on stage. Gertrude never has a strong enough presence to be noteworthy, while Ophelia shines, particularly in her scenes of madness. Authentic love between Hamlet and Ophelia is portrayed in the play’s early scenes, but their relationship doesn’t continue as the plot progresses, creating an anticlimactic demise in the “nunnery” scene.
The only strength of such a casting tactic was originality. The bond of male camaraderie between Horatio and Hamlet is forced and inauthentic. Horatio, however, shrines through in the closing scene, seeing the character contemplate whether or not to drink the dregs from the poisoned goblet to join the dead that surrounds her. As a result, the audience is left to dwell on a new question – to die or not to die? This ambiguity and lack of closure leaves audiences musing on their own mortality and thinking more deeply about the drama of the play’s final scene.
It is certainly, as advertised, a “muscular” production, but perhaps this is at the expense of doing justice to Shakespeare’s magnificent original text. Overall, the production falls a little flat, and if less time was spent dwelling on elaborately choreographed sword fights, more could have been used to retain significant moments of engagement that captivate the audience as much as any gory violence.
