The Gulf News on Hamlet, December 18 2001
Hamlet
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Open Air
British Touring Shakespeare
Your uncle callously murders his brother, who happens also to be your father, and then marries your mother.
No wonder we have juvenile delinquency.
The angst-ridden young Hamlet is the product of the ultimate dysfunctional family. He is the original messed-up teenager, tortured with guilt and doubts and a vast catalogue of hitherto undiagnosed adolescent psychological ailments.
As Prince of Denmark, he has watched his uncle usurp his father's crown and take his mother for his wife. He decides the villain must be exposed.
By chance, a troupe of itinerant players is visiting the castle, and offer to put on a play. Hamlet's scheming mind goes to work, and decides that "the play's the thing" through which he can tell the story of his uncle's misdeeds.
He collars the actors' leader and suggests a bit of a rewrite on the play. Why not insert a terrific new dramatic scene - about a guy who murders his brother and then, er...marries his brother's wife? There is a lot of high drama and death before this domestic wrangle runs its full course.
But on the way we learn a lot about the human condition through some of Shakespeare's most memorable lines.
Director Miles Gregory has opted for a straight production with no gimmicks - the staging is simplicity itself, with a minimum of furniture removals and no changing backdrops.
The play has been cut by I would guess about a third, but the integrity has not been compromised. All the really important stuff is still in, although the virtual elimination of an interesting character like Fortinbras left a bit of a gap.
Tom Mallaburn, as Hamlet, rides the peaks and troughs of the young prince's tortured emotions with consummate skill in a nicely-paced performance.
The classic "to be or not to be" soliloquy, delivered while walking the aisle among the audience, came over well. So, too, did the equally-renowned "Alas, poor Yorik" graveside scene with the skull.
Sarah Chalcroft, as Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, gives a stoical rendering of this tragic woman, aware of her own guilt but still perplexed by her son's behaviour.
And as the ill-fated Ophelia, Keely Tauman makes a seamless transition from lovable young innocent down into gibbering madness.
Joel Wilson weighs in well as Hamlet's protagonist, Laertes, culminating in a dramatically accomplished sword fight in the closing scenes.
On the whole, a streamlined production that is difficult to fault. This was the British Touring Shakespeare Company's second offering of the week on the lawn of The Ritz Carlton, the previous one being Twelfth Night, and another success.
All praise to CSM for bringing us this fulfilling and welcome change to the Dubai entertainment diet, and let us hope there will be more.
How about, say, A Midsummer Night's Dream, played in the open among the green undergrowth on a pleasantly warm Midwinter's Night in Dubai?
Alexander Lindsay
