Word: hamlets
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...Hamlet, under Ron Daniels' direction, successfully captivates the audience for the full three-and-a-half hours. The play is a powerful visual experience and an artistic accomplishment. More importantly, Hamlet's theatrical achievements never cloud the focus of the play-to show how one responds to suffering and uncertainty in one's life...
Daniels, Honorary Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, presents a refreshingly non-traditional interpretation that fans of convention may find upsetting. Every aspect of the production works to further Hamlet's pain and frustration, warrant his indecisiveness and inevitably drive him to madness. The addition of modern gestures and effects offer comic relief from this frightening society while adding to the overall disjointedness of Hamlet's life...
From the beginning, set and costume designer Antony McDonald confirms the bizarre timeless and time-warped world which Hamlet inhabits-characters walk obliviously among sloped walls, tilted windows and mixed period costumes. Persons of the Court dress in sedate gray, crimson or black uniforms and evening gowns. Visitors to Elsinore wear three-piece suits and trench coats, and each Player sports a different decade's styles...
Music, sound and lighting effects add significantly to the desperation of Hamlet's world. Claire van Kampen's score of trumpets, strings, percussion and piano-coordinated with sounds of wind, sea and rain-compliments the mood of accompanying scenes. The thundering chords, lighting and unearthly chanting of "Sanctus Spiritus" heighten the horror of the Ghost scenes. Strains of piano and strings underlying loving scenes between Claudius and Gertrude and later among Laertes, Ophelia and Polonius reveal the fragility of those moments...
...Hamlet's situation is made more formidable by Mark Metcalf's portrayal of Claudius, not as a clear inferior to the brother he murdered, but as an emancipator who releases Elsinore from an austere ruler and awakens Gertrude's passion and love. Metcalf depicts Claudius as the ultimate politician-charming and charismatic whenever it suits him. In comparison, the Ghost (Miguel Perez) is presented as a frightening imposition on poor Hamlet's time, rather than an inspiration to avenge. Claudius' appealing grace undermines the Ghost's severe dignity, and, as a result, the audience understands Hamlet's delay in killing...