Michael Grandage of the Donmar Directs Jude Law in Hamlet at the Broadhurst on Broadway
It's a mouthful. But so is Shakespeare. And the lead here is that you can understand every word Hamlet utters in Jude Law's clean and crisp rendering of what can be an earful to modern audiences. Accessible, yes. Even to Americans, and yes, even to tourists. So, kudos on that score.
Jude Law was good in Hamlet--yet not great. Perhaps it’s not fair to say that one of theater’s most cherished icons was “not fully realized”. How can an actor be all things inside and outside of a character? The answer, of course, is that one can’t, and mustn’t: there is your version of this person, and the question becomes whether your interpretation is fully realized for the audience.
When doing Shakespeare this can be doubly tricky for an actor because of the verse. Will the audience buy it? Will the audience believe it?
Law gave us an excellent physicality, but I felt it was almost as if he were leaning on that to capture all of Hamlet--which resulted in a "performance" as opposed to a more intimate wrangling with such a rich complex young man.
Law did get the youth and quick-tongue right, and his lean lithe figure was beautiful--but I'm not at all sure that Hamlet should be more beautiful than Ophelia. His verbal facility (assured and considerable) kind of hijacked any sense of soul, tortured or in grief.
A key element in making me believe in Hamlet is the deep sense of grief he should feel for his dad, and I didn't get a wink of it from Law.
As another review mentioned, this Hamlet was in control virtually all the time. So his decision doesn't come off as a decision, the mousetrap is window dressing, and he's more hero than Hamlet.
The lighting and staging I found to my taste, though some reviewers say it's vintage Grandage -- the concentrated shafts of light (which I very clearly remember from Grandage’s “Richard III” in Sheffield with Kenneth Branagh), the brick background. But the opening and closing of huge doors (very Branagh Henry V-like and as impressive) felt as if Elsinore was a prison, and that this was the palace which Hamlet experienced, as opposed to the palace which in fact existed.
The clothing choice--I can't in fairness call it costuming--was as my son called it, "AmApp"--meaning American Apparel basic grey and more grey and black for some contrast. The choices did not add to any aspect of the production, and the stills of Law make him look like an advert in the Sunday Times magazine.
Some critics say they were distracted by the snow—to that I say, “Oh c'mon!” The gentle blue-lit snowfall was a setting worthy and instantly memorable for the most famous monologue in the world. The analogy of a life as brief as a snowflake, where each may appear to float in a flurry of frost, but is in fact hurtling to the ground, is beautifully tragic. It also looks awesome. And while you can complain that Law not only seems remote, but is literally distant from the warmer bodies straining to hear this bit, he does move downstage closer to the audience eventually . . . at least I thought he did. It wasn’t a “sit on the edge of the stage, legs dangling” and let us look into his eyes scenario.
Kevin R. McNally as Claudius was good. True, he did not connect during the prayer scene (in Branagh’s film version Derek Jacobi for me is the height and weight of a king in stolen robes.) But McNally’s portrayal was strong, and gave shape and balance to an often underwhelming sense of the court. Ron Cook as Polonius was a scene stealer, and helped the production by giving the audience an actor with whom to connect, although the funny man trope is one which is o’erdone.
Laertes played by Gwilym Lee was not at the level I hoped for, and he was wearing a terrible outfit to boot. Ophelia . . . I’m trying to think of something positive to say. Acting is not easy, maybe I can say that. Gugu Mbatha-Raw had no effect on me; it was as if lines were being spoken somewhere, not grounded in the action or emotion of the moment. I do feel sorry to have to say that. Did I mention that acting is not easy? Geraldine James as Gertrude was fine, though not particularly memorable. But that might have been the pants.
I know Peter Eyre was supposed to be—well, I don’t know what he was supposed to be. To my ears and eyes, he was annoying. His delivery was flowery and totally not of this world—and I don’t mean that in a good or even ghostly way. It irked in the faux posh cadence of many a lesser thespian. Oy, sorry!
The scarcity of props and doodads brought the acting into clear focus, which is both a gift and responsibility for the cast. I don't remember music, or pointed use of sounds--these seem like areas which can help pull us further into the production, but not put to use here. I don't remember silence being used as a punctuation mark, either.
The night flew by, the pace was good, and in no time at all the play was nearing its end. I wanted it to go on, so I must have been enjoying myself. So there.
The foil work was sharp, and spirited, and someone in the audience actually gasped when Gertrude grabbed the cup. Even a tough New York audience can be adorable.
Law acquitted himself without looking foolish, or making it an empty vanity piece. The shame is that he did not pull off a major coup; I feel like Law has more untapped than he was able to dig for.
Ralph Fiennes continues to vary his career, choosing to return
to the stage again, under the direction of Jonathan Kent with the Almeida Theatre productions of Richard II and Coriolanus.
After the scheduled run at Gainsborough, the productions will move
to the Brooklyn Academy of Music venue in New York in the fall.
Tickets for the BAM performances are on sale as of April 1, 2000, and
may be ordered online at the BAM website. Order soon,
as available seats are disappearing.
***************************
London's Tiny, but Mighty, Almeida
London -- As a theater reporter for The Times of London wryly wrote the other day,
"The Almeida's bid for world domination progresses apace"; and that seems no great
exaggeration. Right now, the tiny but hungry playhouse is reaching out from mission
control in North London to colonize a bit of East London, a bit of Central London,
eventually a bit of New York, and, if NASA ever opens up the planetary system to space
thespians, one day no doubt bits of the Moon or Mars or both.
If we discount the much-hyped London debut
of Kathleen Turner in a stage version of "The
Graduate" -- of which more in a moment -- the
Almeida has been gobbling up the London
critics' attention in recent weeks. First there
was the premiere of Harold Pinter's
"Celebration" at the company's grungy
headquarters in Islington. Then it presented
Nicholas Wright's new "Cressida" in the West
End, with a magnificently dilapidated Sir
Michael Gambon as a trainer of the boy actors
who took female roles in early-17th-century
England. And now it has reopened the doors of
the East End film studios once used by Alfred
Hitchcock and staged "Richard II" with Ralph
Fiennes as the king, a production expected at
the Brooklyn Academy of Music, along with
"Coriolanus," in early September.
'Richard II'
The Almeida has a habit of dispatching major
performers across the Atlantic. Mr. Fiennes as
Hamlet, Diana Rigg as Euripides' Medea, Liam
Neeson in David Hare's "Judas Kiss," Kevin
Spacey in O'Neill's "Iceman Cometh": all have
appeared in the company's productions in New
York, the first two of them picking up Tony
Awards for their pains. But most artistic
exporter-importers would not regard "Richard
II" as an especially valuable addition to that
inventory. Shakespeare's inept English king is
not, after all, as massive a creative challenge as
his emotionally turbulent Danish prince. The
surprise at the Gainsborough Studios, then, is
that Mr. Fiennes finds almost more in a lesser
role.
Actually, it's a double surprise, since there is
something about that elegant profile that makes
you half-expect a reprise of the graceful,
willowy, vocally exquisite Richard with which
John Gielgud established his importance in
London 70 years ago. But barely has Mr.
Fiennes been ferried onstage in his glistening
white robe and glistening white throne than
he's suggesting why almost all the English
nobles will be delighted to see him lose his
crown to the usurping Bolingbroke.
He uses his thin smile either to mock them or to
seek reassurance from his flatterers, and his
tongue to flaunt his wit or, at one bizarre point,
to stick out and wiggle at his angry uncle, John
of Gaunt. He is disdainful, petulant, malicious
and smug.
But there are political as well as personal
reasons for dethroning him. Mr. Fiennes's king
is clearly improvising public policy as the whim
takes him, whether that means taking charge of
Irish wars, banishing dangerously influential
men, raising taxes, anything. He seizes the
exiled Bolingbroke's lands while picking the
petals off a flower, and just as casually. Never
have I seen a Richard II who made me so aware
of how quick and quixotic his key decisions
are, and I have seldom seen a production that
so lucidly posed a question still alive when
Shakespeare wrote: is there a point when
mortals are entitled to depose God's deputy on
earth, the divinely anointed king?
Jonathan Kent, who directs, brings energy and pace to a play that can seem a classroom
slog, getting good supporting performances from Linus Roache, a Bolingbroke with the
resolution and the sureness of political touch that Mr. Fiennes's Richard lacks, and Oliver
Ford Davies as a Duke of York less torn than dismembered by his conflicting loyalties. But
in "Richard II" it's the title character who matters, and, despite his unsentimental
interpretation and coldly chiseled profile, you couldn't call Mr. Fiennes inhuman or finally
unsympathetic.
Yes, he displays a self-infatuated glee when he steals Bolingbroke's birthright, and, yes, he
thrusts his head forward like a venomous cobra when he rejects a man he pretends to love.
But adversity brings out more than just self-pitying bluster and manic mood swings. There is
unexpected majesty in Mr. Fiennes's outrage when, high on a balcony, he confronts the
rebels. There is a moving realism in his recognition that "I live with bread like you, feel
want, taste grief, need friends." And there is a mournful wisdom when, alone in his prison
cell, he confesses that "I wasted time and now doth time waste me." Even arrogant,
unself-knowing despots can grow -- and Mr. Fiennes's Richard proves it.
***************************
London Times
Benedict Nightingale sees the Almeida deliver a triumphant Richard
II
This happy breed of actor
For a man with a profile that might
have been chiselled for display on
some new Parthenon by a
contemporary Phidias, Ralph
Fiennes is a surprisingly flexible and
versatile actor. Here he is in the
vast, vaulty Gainsborough Studios
in Shoreditch, a mix of old brick,
timber, scaffolding and black
foam-rubber seats where Alfred
Hitchcock shot several of his
movies, playing Richard II for the
Almeida, the same company that
staged his fine, courtly Hamlet five
years ago; and somehow he
succeeds in giving a more various,
multi-coloured performance in what
everyone would agree to be a less
rich and rewarding part.
In he comes, borne on a white
throne as on a sedan chair, right up
to the rectangle of tufty grass that
serves as a stage and presumably
symbolises "this blessed plot, this
earth, this realm": ie, the England he
has omitted to keep properly tended
and mown.
Notwithstanding the peculiar yellow cycling trousers just visible beneath
his shimmering gown, he looks and sounds every inch the monarch. But
then he proceeds to step down, and from that moment we sense the
volatile blend of preciosity, humour, weakness, bitchiness, arrogance,
smugness, sarcasm and sheer folly that eventually loses him his throne to
Linus Roache's Bolingbroke.
In Richard II, more than any other of Shakespeare's plays, a key
conundrum is posed. The king is God's representative on earth,
untouchable. He is also a man, fallible. What is to be done when the man
contrives to subvert the divine deputy? Fiennes offers us some genuinely
regal moments, notably when he emerges on a balcony high above his
emblematic slice of England, and with all the charisma at his formidable
command gives the usurping lords an all-too-prophetic warning of the
results of their blasphemy and hubris. But he is far more frequently a
spoilt man with an unreconstructed child somewhere inside him.
After all, what are his subjects to do with a king who skims with such
shallow ease from mood to mood, instant idea to impromptu decision?
For instance, Fiennes's Richard finances his ill-considered Irish wars by
formulating a punitive tax policy in the time it would take Gordon Brown
to take a couple of sips of water in mid-budget speech. And what are the
English nobles to make of his lightly disguised distaste and half-open
mockery of so many of them? He grins at his flatterers, he waggles his
tongue at the dying John of Gaunt, he seizes the dead man's goods while
he casually picks and discards petals from a flower. Beside him,
Roache's Bolingbroke, incisive yet not insensitive, strong yet deeply
troubled by the close of the play, is in every respect but the divinely
sanctioned one the better equipped to rule.
Jonathan Kent's production is brisk and pacey, and offers especially good
supporting performances in Oliver Ford Davies's flummoxed York, a
not-very-good swimmer trying to maintain equilibrium in a tank of
warring piranhas, and from David Burke's Gaunt, who not only gives his
famous elegy for England the political significance it demands but
transforms it into a pained and wistful lament for his own imminent death.
But finally any Richard II must be judged by its Richard II, and in the
play's later stages Fiennes moves beyond imperious bluster, mandarin
self-pity, toffy-nosed ire and all such things.
In his prison he is, as he should be, a man but no longer the same sort of
man. There he stands, alone in a thin yellow light, occasionally
succumbing to bitterness, yet also mournfully but carefully enunciating
the simple syllables in which he acknowledges his blasted aspirations and
wasted life. He seems physically to have withered - but also to have done
what Shakespeare wanted. He has grown.
***************************
***************************
The Express
Sam and Ralph are the men
who would be King Richard
By one of those strange theatrical
coincidences, two brightly burning lights of
British stage and screen are going head
to head in productions of one of
Shakespeare's less performed history
plays.
Ralph Fiennes for the Almeida Theatre,
and Sam West for the RSC in Stratford,
will be offering their takes on Richard II,
the Plantagenet king who was deposed
and murdered in a 14th century coup
d'état.
Fiennes alone would be enough to attract
interest. Buoyed by a series of fine
celluloid performances in The End Of The
Affair, Onegin and the forth-coming
art-house epic, Sunshine, Fiennes is not
only a star but an actor of physical and
intellectual gusto.
But the added tang of having 30-year-old
West in a rival performance at the same time has theatrical connoisseurs
intrigued.
While West, son of Prunella Scales and Timothy West, has faded - perhaps
deliberately - from the movie radar since his leading role in Howard's End, he
is a highly sought presence on television, radio and the stage. He has never
been modish like Ewan McGregor or Jude Law, but has quietly established
himself as a pillar of the orthodox acting establishment.
The chance to compare and contrast the two actors' Richards is therefore a
rare treat for fans of such things.
In the Shakespearean version of medieval history, Richard was a watery
dreamer. Given to long soliloquies, he is introspective, poetic and totally
unsuited to kingship. It is a complex part, but not one to cast chisel-jawed
actors in an heroic light.
"That's what makes it interesting," says Kenneth Branagh, a friend of both
men and an actor for whom the works of the Bard are something akin to a
personal fiefdom. "I fully intend to catch both Sam and Ralph doing Richard
as they are both first-rate classic actors.
"The interpretation will be fascinating. I don't think either will be a wimpish
Richard, though the part can be seen as such. Both Sam and Ralph have the
lyricism, both have something of the poet in them and both have the
cheekbones - which I wish I could say myself. But Richard does have a lot to
say and there's skill needed to manoeuvre through the soliloquies."
Although Richard's character is profoundly flawed, it seems that neither of the
actors are prepared to play him as an anaemic drip.
"It's more the case of playing a man totally miscast," says West, who began
rehearsals in Stratford last month. "He is the king forced to play a role he's
completely unsuited for."
But West insists that the play retains a relevance beyond its protagonist's
central human drama. "I can tell people I'm doing a play about poll tax riots,
the Irish question and whether we should be a republic or not, and they'll
assume it's set in 1999 not 1399," he says.
Perhaps for this reason, both productions appear to eschew chain mail and
tapestries for a more contemporary setting.
"We're working in a white minimalist space and I'm pretty certain it won't be
done in medieval costume," says West.
Of Fiennes's production - to be staged by Jonathan Kent in East London's
Gainsborough Studios along with Coriolanus in which Fiennes also stars - a
production insider says: "It's going to have a fairly modern setting - imperial
Austrian, not quite Ruritanian but that sort of thing. The set is a very large
space, which Ralph's a bit concerned about. I think Sam's doing it in a
smaller setting.
"Ralph's going to do a harder Richard than usual, not weepy and wet. It's the
flip side of his Coriolanus. He says they each show a deeply flawed leader,
but if you combined them you'd have the ideal monarch - both aggressive
and ameliorative".
Though comparisons between the two Richards will be fascinating, West is
keen to stress there is no professional rivalry between the pair. "I don't like
the idea that we're in competition with each other because of course we're
not," he says. "In fact, I've already delivered a card to the theatre. It says, 'I
hear we're both going to be playing Richard. Good luck to us both'."
Richard II at RSC Stratford (01789 403403) from March 20; Richard II at
Gainsborough Studios, London N1 (0171- 359 4404) from March 30.
(Thanks to Claire and Ngoc, and to Isabel, Georgiana and Claire for the photos.)
For a back issue featuring
Rufus Sewell as Macbeth, click
here.
For interviews and articles about Fiennes, click here.
For the New Yorker article about Pushkin which Fiennes wrote, click here.
New York Times
23 April 2000
Benedict Nightingale
14 April 2000 
staged by the Almeida at Hitchcock's old Gainsborough Studios in Shoreditch. Photographs by Donald Cooper
20 February 2000
Mark Jagasia 
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