The article published on the website of the newspaper “The
Thelegraph” on March, 27, 2013 is headlined “Hamlet, Royal Shakespeare Company,Stratford-upon-Avon, review
”. The article reports at length that There is too much fury
in Jonathan Slinger's Hamlet at the RSC, says Charles Spencer
It was revealed
His production is annoying, too. Farr is the kind of
director who has 20 bright ideas before breakfast and bungs them all on stage
to prove how clever he is. Sometimes it works but a show-offy approach to
Hamlet strikes me as verging on the obscene.
I’m feeling pretty raw at present, as my father died last
week, indeed I registered his death en route to the theatre, and I was looking
forward to Shakespeare’s play which explores loss, grief and guilt with more
beauty, wisdom and profundity than any other work of art I know. I thought it
might make me cry, but knew they would be the kind of tears that help to heal. In
fact I remained dry-eyed throughout.
The article carries a lot of comment on the fact that Farr
has set the play in the 1960s (cue spliffs and ban-the-bomb signs), with the
action taking place in a down-at heel gymnasium with the words “mens sana in
corpore sano” inscribed on the wall, heavily undelining point that Hamlet isn’t
always in his perfect mind.
Analyzing this situation it is necessary to emphasize that in
fact the defining notes of Jonathan Slinger’s Hamlet are relentless anger and
withering sarcasm, a reductive view of the character that becomes decidedly
wearing. At one point he even starts singing Ken Dodd’s Happiness in a mocking
way and, with his piscine features, thinning hair and ill-fitting suit he looks
more like an embittered low-rank civil servant than a prince.
As for me,
I think that the quality the actor fatally lacks is warmth, though he does
strikes some gentler, quieter notes at the end which hint at what might have
been. The one success is Greg Hicks, equally compelling as Claudius and the
Ghost of Hamlet’s father. His physical grace and superb verse-speaking puts
most of the company to shame, and I wonder what Greg Doran, the company’s new
artistic director, makes of this botched shot after his own superb production a
few years ago, starring David Tennant.
Badly done!
ОтветитьУдалитьThe impression is that you haven't bothered to read the article you have rendered.
How can you explain the phrase, I quote:
"I’m feeling pretty raw at present, as my father died last week, indeed I registered his death en route to the theatre, and I was looking forward to Shakespeare’s play which explores loss, grief and guilt with more beauty, wisdom and profundity than any other work of art I know. I thought it might make me cry, but knew they would be the kind of tears that help to heal. In fact I remained dry-eyed throughout."