Lazarus Theatre Company returns to the Southwark Playhouse after their 2022 manufacturing of Doctor Faustus, with their interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. To be or to not be – that’s the query and one which is unfortunately no clearer by the tip of the present.
Starting off as a gaggle remedy session, sat in a circle on plastic chairs, the forged take turns to introduce themselves and the characters they play. A gentle digital camera exhibits the theatre on screens which ultimately made me assume this was purported to be an asylum for younger individuals – all the time being watched.
We are then catapulted right into a weird whirlwind of a 100-minute abridged model of Hamlet. To shorten the manufacturing, all grownup characters have been faraway from the story, thus eradicating a number of the pivotal moments and character motivations which makes for a complicated time attempting to comply with the narrative.
Written greater than 500 years in the past, the poetic use of the English language is kind of totally different from the phrases we use immediately and subsequently tough to typically comply with. The key to a profitable manufacturing is sweet performing and supply of the traces. Sadly, on this manufacturing, our Hamlet, Michael Hawkey, races by the textual content so quick that it’s illegible. Kalifa Taylor as First Player offers an excellent efficiency and Alex Zur was wildly underused as Horatio (even reducing his very presence within the ‘Alas poor Yorick’ speech). Also, main snaps for Sam Morris as Laertes, for with the ability to act a scene about his father’s loss of life after we had been by no means launched to his father (or why he was killed).
The bloodshed in the direction of the tip of the present deserved an award for ‘tidiest bloodshed ever’ which once more, took away from connecting to the story however the gradual movement struggle scene, performed out like a online game, was enjoyable to observe not less than.
This 100-minute manufacturing is hurried and weird. Ending because it started, with the ensemble gathering collectively in the identical ‘safe space’ circle during which they started. We then see your complete present rewind on the screens. Everything has been reset. This time, nonetheless, Ophelia (Lexine Lee) is lacking. She hasn’t returned after her character’s loss of life. As each different character returns after their alter-ego’s demise, her absence is clearly famous.
Then, precisely because the play started, the authoritarian voice of God asks the forged ‘who wants to go first.’ Once once more, Laertes is the primary to step ahead, take the mic, and state his identify, position and a defining second of his character. Then, with a blackout, the present ends.
Perhaps all of that is merely meant to point that this group of younger individuals is deeply troubled and might solely exist by reenacting their traumas repeatedly. However, the absence of Ophelia implies that when they’re retelling the story, another person should tackle her position. A job from which they by no means return. This then asks the query… is that this play a few suicide cult?
To be or to not be? I worry they need to haven’t. It did nonetheless make for an excellent dialog within the pub afterwards, which is what you need from a present.
★★
Reviewed by West End Wilma