2007

Hamlet
by William Shakespeare

State Theatre Company of South Australia
And Queensland Theatre Company
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
April 3. Tickets: $17-$ 60. Bookings : BASS 131 246
Until April 21, 2007

A new version of Hamlet is the chance to see the latest plausible hypothesis. The Dane, after all, is a most enigmatic fellow and the task of both actor and director is to present him, from the ghost scene to the endgame duel, as if all can be logically explained. The feigned madness, the dumping of Ophelia, the callous dispatch of Polonius – all these somehow have to be incorporated and, as they say in the crime procedurals, given motive, cause and opportunity.

In the State Theatre Company of South Australia’s joint production with Queensland Theatre Company, director Adam Cook seems less interested in what makes Hamlet tick than in giving him opportunities to act out. In an often delightful performance, charismatic young actor Cameron Goodall provides a series of dazzling sketches of Hamlet, but Cook has not shaped and steered them into a satisfying production.

With dark spiky hair, emo greatcoat and adolescent contrariness, Goodall’s Hamlet moves from scene to scene like an open razor, illuminating some with his edgy diction, others, including key soliloquies, like the player Hamlet himself chides, he mangles with enunciation, reducing cadenced sentences to a blizzard of single words. But there is energy and intelligence in his performance, especially – and it is not often – when he has someone to share the batting. Dennis Olsen’s suavely dotty Polonius is excellent, so is Sean Taylor as the almost pitiful Claudius. Barbara Lowing’s Gertrude, the brother’s trophy, is also impressive – especially in the wrack and ruin of Act Five. There is little spark with Emily Tomlins’ Ophelia, though, not helped by Kathryn Sproul’s eclectic, varyingly successful costumes. In Act Three, the key scene when Hamlet unaccountably spurns his true love, he looks like one of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds and she like a member of the von Trapp family.

Bruce McKinven’s set is as striking as it is problematic. Consisting of a large burnished wooden fortress inscribed with dozens of names – a list of the war dead perhaps, or pages from the Elsinore phone book – it cracks open to reveal a huge three-tiered stage area. Although handsomely lit by Gavan Swift, the decor complicates the staging and accentuates the fact that the kingdom of Denmark is short-staffed.

Accessible and entertaining but short on complexity, this Hamlet is less a tragedy than a cautionary tale. When the hero lies dying – poisoned, stabbed and in disbelief that he will very soon cease to be – for us there is no pity and fear, only inevitability. For all his nerve, this callow lonely youth was never going to make first base.

“Dazzling sketches don’t measure up to tragedy” (Hamlet) The Australian, April 5, 2007, p.36.