Hamlet review
Here's my review of Simm!Hamlet. This was previously included in a friendslocked post, so I thought I'd post this separately so you don't have to go through my holiday snaps in case you want to read it:)
( The readiness is all )
( The readiness is all )
Comments 12
i want to see comic bitchy Hamlet. What lines were those, precisely? That sounds so good.
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And I was thinking of you at the theatre! I think you would've really liked that particular interpretation. John did so many humorous interpretations of the lines that it'd take forever to list them all. But, for instance, "have you eyes?" was delivered like "um... hello? Have you *seen* this guy?" in such a deadpan, shruggy way that the audience was in stitches. And he did a lot of mincing at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (I think he was better than Tennant at the pisstakey bits because while he did silly voices, they weren't the sort of "hurf durf, are you a reetaaarrd" faces Dave did). And he twirled at Polonius when he was reading a book. With words. Aaaaaaaah. And in the very first scene he was in, he just sprawled sulkily on the floor for ages while Claudius groped Gertrude. I wish you'd been there.
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I do hope that somehow a few more choice bits become available on video for those of us who couldn't attend, because it sounds absolutely tantalising!
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I wish there were more bits available, too. It'd be interesting to see how the actors would interpret some of the stuff if they didn't have to project so much and could have closeups. John's voice got slightly more high-pitched than usual because he had to project, but OTOH, it made him sound younger and that suited Hamlet just fine. All in all, I feel the critics have been much too harsh and even if it's a slightly Spartan production, the character interpretations are quite, quite interesting (and this comes from someone who's a really critical and bitchy viewer). And John is just magnificient.
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Also, was in third row from front and therefore got an excellent view of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern *snuggling* - don't know if you saw that, I only did because they were so close to me.
Shakespeare was a slasher.
Saw Dave's Hamlet too in Stratford so it was an interesting compare & contrast exercise, and I think I have to say Dave's was the better production overall, but I'm not sure I could choose between them individually as Hamlet, the epic angst versus the more thoughtful, grief... tough call.
There may possibly have been some flailing when bladed weapons got involved and errr... the bit where they're watching the play and he was kind of kneeling and being petted... *cough*
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It's hard to compare productions if the setting is so different, isn't it? I could point out bits Dave did better (the soliloquies) and bits John did better (the jokey and bitchy bits--oh man, the way he camped up in the "antic disposition" bit<3), but they are so different there's not much point. John's so good at the thinkiness. It was one of the few Hamlets where I didn't believe Hamlet actually really went mad, but somehow that wasn't a problem at all, because the pointedness of his rage was so captivating. I would've imagined John to do lots of weeping and emo, so it was really interesting to see how angrily he played it ( ... )
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Ah, we were at the side and it wasn't so bad there, or at least they hadn't used as much, which is probably just as well because one of the friends I went with is asthmatic too.
It's hard to compare productions if the setting is so different, isn't it? I could point out bits Dave did better (the soliloquies) and bits John did better (the jokey and bitchy bits--oh man, the way he camped up in the "antic disposition" bit<3), but they are so different there's not much
Wow, yeah, he was *funny*, which is not something I expect in Hamlet really (aside from Polonius) and especially not from Hamlet himself but we loled a number of times.
point. John's so ( ... )
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