And you do. There may be a lot missing from this Hamlet – no soldiers on watch, no Horatio, no players, no gravediggers, no Fortinbras, and the list goes on – but as you listen, every word gains importance, impact and meaning, and the gaps are skilfully filled or smoothed over. The music, divinely sung by countertenor Maximilian Riebl, accompanied by Luke Byrne on the piano, adds to the atmosphere.
In the first scene, a briefly lit glimpse, we see Hamlet (Toby Schmitz) and Ophelia (Emily Barclay, with Horatio’s lines) as lovers who are clearly comfortable with each other, talking about the dead king – and just like that, in one brilliant stroke, Stone has established what his Hamlet is about. Over the next two hours, we witness the breakdown of a young man who is grappling with grief and betrayal, and in the process destroys everything he loves.
Even if you don’t always agree with his choices, Toby Schmitz owns his role with an assurance and confidence that allows him to mimic a cough from the audience on the fly before delivering Hamlet’s line about the “quintessence of dust”. Hamlet’s pain, confusion and increasing horror at what he’s done are raw and intense, sometimes uncomfortable and almost overwhelming to watch.
He is supported by what Belvoir calls ‘a cast of masters’, and they’re not wrong: Greg Stone is a Polonius who thinks he understands everything but really isn’t as clever as he thinks. Robyn Nevin’s Gertrude is a broken woman who doesn’t seem quite there, oscillating between what you begin to suspect are drunken or medicated highs and lows, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders yet seemingly unsure what exactly happened. John Gaden plays an immensely likeable Claudius who shows concern for everyone and seems incapable of hurting a fly – yet you can’t shake the feeling that there must be a reason why misery surrounds him. Anthony Phelan, the ever-present ghost of Hamlet’s father, in contrast seems grumpy, threatening and distant – it’s no wonder Hamlet initially doesn’t trust him and devises a ploy to find out whether the ghost has told the truth.
The set is a typical Myers set, bare, with stark contrasts, almost oppressively dark before the interval, all white afterwards, with the neat effect of making the red of the blood stand out more brightly. And there is a lot of red: In the end, Hamlet is surrounded by bloodied ghosts – his father, Polonius, Nathan Lovejoy as a character who is both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Ophelia, then joined by Claudius, Gertrude and Laertes (Thomas Campbell). It’s unclear whether these latter three are already dead or not: The dialogue indicates they’re still alive, but the blood on their bodies and clothes says otherwise. Or maybe it’s Hamlet who’s not sure anymore after having seen more and more ghosts throughout the play and getting more and more disturbed, frightened and horrified by them.
During the interval, I overheard a woman saying to her friend in the bathroom queue: ‘I’ve seen enough. I mean, I know the story’. And while it’s of course true that we all know how it ends, we haven’t seen this story, this Hamlet, ‘molded from the clay that Shakespeare has provided’, as Simon Stone calls it, and surely that’s what you came for in the first place. Despite some small criticisms – too much horrified groaning on Hamlet’s part which ends up having an unintended comic effect, the somewhat overdone humour of the mousetrap play, the rather messy ending that should probably have been longer – this Hamlet works.
Despite the cuts, everything you need is there. At the same time, it’s impossible to shake the curious feeling that you’re watching something that’s very much like Hamlet yet isn’t quite Hamlet. And that is precisely what gives this play an immediacy and directness that ‘classic’ Hamlets can lack, making the characters more relatable and familiar and rendering a very modern, radical re-imagining of a play that has been around for over 400 years.
Rating: 4 stars
Hamlet
17 Oct 2013
Directed by Simon Stone
Belvoir, Upstairs Theatre, 25 Belvoir Street, Surry Hills
12 October – 1 December
Image: Toby Schmitz in Hamlet – photo credit Brett Boardman
