Hamlet

Of all the productions of Shakespeare’s frivolous work I have ever witnessed, this by far was the most unusual. The performance was two African actors, recreating the story of hamlet using a variety of symbolism and meta-theatre. At first I felt as if I was missing an important piece of information about the production, I felt as though more actors would come or the actors on stage were performing some kind of pre-text, however as I watched on, I slowly began to felt intrigued by the actors, they demanded the attention of the crowd and forced us to see what they had to offer. The style was very symbolic in the way that a single pose or arm gesture symbolised one character, especially with Shakespeare’s hamlet it is well known that there are a large number of characters, all of which were all played very well and with enough contrast as to allow us not to get lost in which character was being portrayed. The actors did perform scenes together however the majority was a soliloquy or simply a motion that allowed us to see what exactly was happening in the play, this was unusually good as for someone who knows Hamlet I was reminded of moment in the play just by watching the actors perform motions repeatedly. The actors played women convincingly, there was plenty of room for the audience to find moments when the male actors struck a female pose yet I feel they held their integrity and the audience were so captured by the two men that the humour was only on a basic level. In hindsight, the play had the potential to be extremely dull and un-entertaining, however I feel with the mix of African Folk lore, song and dance, it gave Hamlet a new lease of life. Thom's Star Rating ***