Coming to grips with the melancholy Dane

Hamlet
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Marian Dworakoski
New Theatre, Sydney, until July 6
Reviewed by Jonathan Strauss

The Sydney New Theatre, formed in 1932, has been a pioneer in presenting socially relevant and committed theatre and proclaims its determination to continue doing so. Does its latest production — Hamlet, a "400 year old play about a depressed aristocrat" (Kenneth Branagh, quoted in the program notes) — achieve this?

Yes, but only because Hamlet is not, except in form, about a depressed aristocrat or two (perhaps Branagh was being a little flippant), nor about a young man failing to grow into adulthood (as I vaguely remember being told at school).

Instead, the play, as a tragedy, employs the medium of the "fatal flaw" — what we, in less superstitious times, might call a fundamental contradiction. Thus nothing is quite as it seems.

Each of the two main characters expresses this. In Claudius' initial advice to Hamlet, he shows the possibility of being a wise king, but his greed for the crown drew him towards plotting poisonous murder. Hamlet forgoes the opportunity to simply avenge his father's death by killing Claudius in the moment of his regret, vowing to wreak the maximum possible havoc, and thus bring this upon the guilty, innocent and himself alike.

Hamlet's taunts against women, justly condemned, are shown in the course of the play to be false. Gertrude is innocent of her former husband's murder. Ophelia, formerly wooed by Hamlet, is arbitrarily and insensitively rejected, the emotional trauma (compounded by the death of her father at Hamlet's hand) driving her to suicide.

These ambiguities give Hamlet an element of realism that can speak to us today. With the generally good acting and production offered by New Theatre, my interest was maintained throughout.

Oddly enough, at a loss for something to do the previous night, I had seen Branagh's film A Midwinter's Tale, a romantic comedy set around the production of Hamlet. Good entertainment, this also made use of things not being what they first appear to be, with a bunch of acting misfits forming a team for an exciting performance of the play.

From GLW issue 231