Giles Terera made a name for himself – and won an Olivier – playing Aaron Burr in the 2017 West End premiere run of Hamilton. On stage, he’s prolific and versatile, as capable in “straight” theatre as musicals and, as we saw with his superb 2022 slave drama The Meaning of Zong, a budding playwright too. His intelligence, charisma, mellifluous handling of words – oh, and deft way with a sword – are manifest in this compelling “chamber” Hamlet.
Director Justin Audibert brings Shakespeare’s heftiest tragedy – of grief, hesitant revenge, madness feigned and real, and death – to Chichester for the first time (a remarkable fact, given that the first in his post as artistic director was Laurence Olivier). At three hours, it’s a long night. But it’s rewardingly unshowy.
On stage with Ryan Hutton, who starred in Only Fools and Horses The Musical, as Laertes – Ellie Kurttz
Trevor Nunn’s legendarily dark, intense Macbeth at the RSC (1976) starring Judi Dench and Ian McKellen lastingly proved the malignant power of small spaces. This shadowy, close-up production valuably strives for a similar nightmarish quality.
It even has shades of the later work. Lily Arnold’s set unsettles: a tiled floor turns into a high mound of earth above which perches a weird claustrophobic interior, serving variously as battlement, meeting-place and bedroom. Alcoves and side-corridors assist the sense of Denmark as prison and purgatory; conversations falter as figures steal past and an eerie sound of foot-steps abounds.
There’s something almost Macbeth-like about the paranoic behaviour of Sara Powell’s Gertrude and Ariyon Bakare’s newly enthroned Claudius (Hamlet’s regicidal uncle). And, as with the Scottish play’s Banquo, Terera’s Prince resembles a spectre at the feast during an opening candle-lit gathering, skulking in a door-way.
Eve Ponsonby stars as the twitchily vulnerable Ophelia – Ellie Kurttz
Not every supporting player displays the requisite finesse with the verse but overall there’s a welcome clarity and respect for the poetry. Terera shines in his soliloquies – abetting the ruminative thrust of “To be or not to be…”, for instance, by lending subtle emphasis to words like “whips” and “pangs”. His melancholy confab with Yorick’s skull is a spine-tingling face-off with mortality.
I’d love more of the wildness that seizes him when he turns on Eve Ponsonby’s twitchily vulnerable Ophelia, and the giggling mania with which he confronts Keir Charles’s unusually sharp-edged Polonius. Even so, this feels like “his” Hamlet – not attention-hogging, or a heavy-handed, meddling director’s cut. No-frills, despite stylish 17th century costumes. To quote the play: “For this relief, much thanks.”
Running until Oct 4; book tickets here
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
