Hamlet review

Kathrine Payne and Curtis Callier raise a lot of those laughs as a buffoonish Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, played in the style of DJs hosting a kid’s birthday party. Adam Clifford provides plenty of physical comedy as a foppish, prancing Polonius, but delivers an entirely different energy when voicing the Ghost, all pained groans and snarls of anger. The vengeful spirit, when it appears, is represented as a towering sheet ghost, flimsy fabric billowing from a hovering crown, simultaneously amusing and credibly creepy. Monique Walker stands out as a warm and likeable Ophelia, making a significant chunk of the “to be or not to be” soliloquy completely her own when she delivers it as a despairing justification for her imminent suicide. As each of these characters dies, they drape a veil over their face, joining the other murder victims as ghostly stagehands who lurk in the shadows, shifting furniture around like poltergeists.

Meanwhile, Simeon Desvignes’ Hamlet whines, wails and fizzes with frustration, too caught up in his own grief to care about the pain he causes others. With much of the character’s introspective dialogue excised, he comes across as positively decisive, enacting a series of highly effective schemes that efficiently destroy everyone around him. One of the show’s most powerful moments comes when Hamlet decides that adopting an unhinged persona is the only rational response to the hypocrisy poisoning the kingdom: Desvignes delivers a fiery rap, chanting the phrase “it’s madness” as a mantra.