Several British companies including the National Theater and Shakespeare’s Globe have been videotaping their productions for consumption in cinemas for some time and are now making their archives available on YouTube. The Globe is currently offering their 2018 Hamlet starring artistic director Michelle Terry in the title role. This is not the first instance of a female Melancholy Dane, the most famous being Sarah Bernhardt, followed decades later by Judith Anderson, Diane Venora, Maxine Peake, and Ruth Negga (recently seen at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse). This staging in the company’s recreation of the Bard’s original playhouse goes further by casting not only Hamlet, but also Horatio, Laertes, and Marcellus with women, Ophelia with a man, and Guildenstern with a hearing-impaired actor. The direction by Federay Holmes and Elle While is serviceable but not especially memorable. All the boxes of conveying the basic plot and keeping the action moving are ticked, but there are no new insights particularly on gender roles or sexual power dynamics.
Terry possesses the necessary classic technique to sustain a credible Hamlet, but she is all rage and no humor (despite being costumed as a clown during the mad scenes). Catron Aaron’s brainy Horatio and Bettrys Jones’ sparkplug of a Laertes are more shaded. Shubham Saraf endows Ophelia with delicate strength and Helen Schlesinger gradually adds layers to Gertrude. James Garnon’s Claudius is a vacillating monarch which is an interesting choice. You could read this interpretation as one of female strength (a determined Hamlet, Laertes, and Horatio) against male incompetence (a weak-willed, corrupt Claudius), but this intriguing concept is not brought out in the direction, nor is the production’s gender-reversing fully explored.
