Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Identical twin actors, Anthony Meyer and David Meyer, playing Hamlet as well as the ghost in Celestino Coronado's 1976 film, can stand for the multiple possibilities of Hamlet: angel and devil, one or the other or both together, and everything in between. Hamlet has, from the beginning, elicited vehement responses from audiences, readers, actors, and directors. Three recent productions, viewed against the background of performance history, will show that meanings for Hamlet have been and must be teased out from between the lines. Simon Russell Beale (directed by John Caird, 2000–1), mature and lovable, is the most recent in a long line of superior Hamlets – kind, intelligent, and better than anyone in the play, better than anyone in the audience. Ethan Hawke (directed by Michael Almereyda, 2000) is a young dropout who rejects his world, which is our world. Peter Darling (directed by Robert Lepage, 1996–7) exploits the playfulness inherent in Shakespeare's art. These disparate productions – the first on stage, the second on film, and the last an amalgam of theatre and video – demonstrate that putting aside distinctions among performance genres allows us to attend to the play's richness.Part of the reason for Hamlet's multiplicity is that Shakespeare endows him with trompe l'oeil verisimilitude. Shakespeare famously rounds out even his minor characters – his evil or stupid characters ... log in or subscribe to read full text