Christina Bianco Reviews: HAMLET, Starring Benedict Cumberbatch

One year ago, I was 2,682nd in an online queue to purchase tickets for The Barbican Theatre's 'Hamlet.' Of course, it is now common knowledge that the entire three-month run completely sold out in less than four hours, so I count myself very lucky to have snagged seats. Bloody good seats as well! I followed a tip I got from Twitter that sent me to an alternate ticketing site and I scored a pair in the second row.

Speaking of Twitter, I should state upfront that I am an unapologetic 'Cumberbabe.' However, that doesn't mean that I am predisposed to rabidly raving about every little thing he does. In fact, I completely skipped seeing "The Fifth Estate" when it opened, which may demote me to a mere 'Cumberlady'. So, I can assure you, I will not be thoughtfully describing his cheekbones at any point during this article.

The moment casting was announced, the press was all aflutter with opinions about how Benedict had arrived 'late' to the Hamlet celebrity casting party, rehashing all the other Hamlets' that Cumberbatch would 'have to beat.' It was implied that he and this Barbican production (directed by Lyndsey Turner) didn't just have to be good, it had to be better than all the rest. Could the megastar and his eagerly anticipated production live up to the hype? Could ANY production survive the furious onslaught of hashtags, hidden cameras, premature reviews and other pre-press night shenanigans that this production was faced with?

Hamlet isn't done in NYC as frequently as it is done in London, but I have seen a few celebrity productions. I caught Ralph Fiennes's Tony winning performance and I also saw Liev Schreiber's and Jude Law's turns as the Dane. I have always been interested in seeing new interpretations of the play and I remember begging my father to take me to see Kenneth Branagh's four-hour film at a movie house that was a two-hour journey away. Every time, the excitement of seeing a new Hamlet consumed me and if I didn't enjoy the production or performance as much as I hoped, I fell into a kind of despair that could suggest I was living in my own Shakespearian tragedy. But this time, I was determined to go into the Barbican Theatre without any hysterical anticipation.

As the curtain (or in this case, the monolith) rose, I turned off my inner actor, critic and Cumberbabe, in hopes of seeing this magnificent play anew.

My verdict? It seems I am in the minority when I say that overall, this production of Hamlet thrilled me, moved me and teased out new things for me to think about. During certain moments in the play, I felt as if I was hearing the text clearly for the first time. Many of those moments came from Cumberbatch himself. There wasn't a hint of "I'm the star" about him. His simple and low-key manner was a pleasant change from the manic and pontificating Hamlets I'd seen in the past. He brought a focus and clarity to the role that left me with new appreciation for this material I'd thought I understood. My being seated so close to the stage gave me the privilege of watching the nuance of these performances, set against this epic backdrop.

Lyndsey Turner's production grabbed me from the beginning. Rather than open with the palace guards seeing the ghost for the first time (a moment that is described and repeated only a few scenes later) we first see a closed black stage with Hamlet, in a small room, alone. He is in his own world, mourning his father by surrounding himself with his belongings. We immediately feel for him and are taken in. This touching scene gradually (and literally) opens up into the contrasting grandeur of the wedding dinner table scene. The change is jarring and breathtaking. That singular moment sets the tone for the entire production. It may appear to be overly ornate but as the story moves along, the frilly 'wedding' dressings are stripped away, leaving the stage as empty and colourless as a tomb. The initial set is appropriately opulent, implying wealth but not warmth. Cold steel railings, dour-faced portraits and hunting trophies adorn the icy blue walls that make up this Elsinore Castle.

There were no ostentatious special effects, save for a handful of extreme lighting and tempo changes that serve mainly as visual rest-stops for the audience to assimilate a major plot shift. For example, the gale-force wind that comes at the end of act one that fills the stage with debris and snow is symbolically bringing the winds of change to Elsinore: a change in Claudius' approach to Hamlet, a change in Hamlet's current circumstances and a change in the way Hamlet is perceived by the rest of the world.

After the interval, we return to see an Elsinore in complete disarray. A bombed-out shell of a building, covered in mounds of rubble that no one can escape or remove. Its inhabitants are forced to stumble about, soiled and shaky. With its physical obstacles and intermittent video projections, the set becomes an additional player for the actors to respond to, which only piques the audience's interest further. The simple fact that no-one even tries to tidy up this mess is perhaps the most revealing part of the effect.

I'll admit that there were some artistic choices I didn't particularly like. For example, why choose to highlight the moment that Hamlet unknowingly slays Laertes with an awkward interpretive dance break? However, upon further reflection, I came up with my own reasoning for it. Whether my answer was in line with the director's intention, who knows.

But I was encouraged to think critically about a play that was written in 1600, and that's not an easy thing to do. This production does make significant cuts to the text but the biggest compliment I can bestow is that no omissions were terribly jarring. The two-hour-long Act 1 sounds daunting, but on the night I saw it, the audience sat motionless throughout. The 55-minute Act 2, briskly pushed the action to a close. It was an exciting journey that never lagged.

The stage and scale are massive, yes, but what went on within was visceral and unpretentious. It is this dichotomy that, for me, made this tragic tale beautiful again.

Indeed, it seems 'the expectation game' regarding this ambitious combination of the red-hot Cumberbatch with the classic tome has resulted in a spate of uneven reviews that may in total not reflect the production's strengths. Unlike many of the critics who thought this production was underwhelming, I think it was brave. One of the most famous actors in the world stars in a sold-out, highly anticipated production of a timeless classic and they stripped away its pomp and pretence so that the story itself becomes the real star. To do that and still achieve the depth of discussion that they've sparked between generations of new and old theatregoers, to me, that's great theatre.

Christina Bianco is performing her solo show 'Party of One' at Birdland, NYC, in September.

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