Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, at the Granary Theatre

You are going to read four reviews of a production of Shakespeare's play Hamlet. For questions 37-40, choose from the reviews A-D. The reviews may be chosen more than once.

 

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, at the Granary Theatre 

Directed by Carol Barlow, starring Paul Mason as Hamlet

 

A

Carol Barlow has come up with a great number of ingenious devices to distinguish her production of Hamlet from the thousands that have gone before. I just wasn't sure how they fitted together to make a coherent whole, and would have been happier with fewer notions, better thought through. Perhaps Barlow's intention was to hold up a mirror to the fragmentary nature of today's world, and if so, she could be said to have succeeded. Paul Mason, playing the role of Hamlet for the first time, certainly delivers his lines thrillingly, the range and resonance of his voice contributing in no small measure. Yet it remained a performance: his gestures and mannerisms kept reminding us that we were watching an actor. As the final curtain fell, I realised I knew the character of Hamlet no better than I did at the beginning.

 

B

Hamlet is a complex character, which gives scope for many different interpretations. However, there needs to be internal consistency: arbitrarily hugging another character one minute and ignoring them the next tells us nothing about Hamlet himself. Paul Mason seems to want to impress us with all the vocal tricks in his repertoire - and there are many - but long before the final curtain, I wished the character had been killed off in Act 1. As director, Carol Barlow seems to have brainstormed ideas for the production, thrown them up in the air, and let them fall at random. The result is a mishmash that for some unfathomable reason is set in the 1920s. Productions of Hamlet often reflect the spirit of the age, so a number of modern versions focus on notions of mental disorder, but Barlow's production tells us nothing about Shakespeare's own time, or about today's world.

 

C

Paul Mason isn't an obvious choice to play Hamlet - he's too old, and his acting is idiosyncratic; yet somehow he pulls it off. His quirks and eccentricities convey the depth of Hamlet's despair, and his need to present a mask to the world. Initially I found his delivery mannered, but it soon drew me in, and immersed me in the character's predicament and his fractured personality. By the end, I could have gone on listening to him for hours. However, Mason was the redeeming feature of the evening. Barlow continually gives the audience new and highly distracting things to think about. For instance, she sets Hamlet in the 1920s, and the costumes, gorgeous though they are, hardly lend themselves to carrying a sword, as many of the characters do. It just made the setting neither modern nor of Shakespeare's own time, or even of the time of the historical Hamlet.

 

D

How can an audience be made to see a play as well-known as Hamlet with fresh eyes? Director Carol Barlow has met the challenge with astonishing bravura. By moving it into the 1920s, she shows the universality of the play's themes, despite the distraction provided by the stunning costumes. Similarly, Barlow's sheer inventiveness teeters on the brink of confusing us and overwhelming the play, but just stops short. My jaw dropped as one mind-boggling and exhilarating idea succeeded another. But Paul Mason's Hamlet! Why on earth did Barlow choose him for the part? As a comic character, he might get away with his over-the-top facial expressions, but as Hamlet he made it impossible for the audience to sympathise, let alone identify, with him. His delivery was a parody, with neither intonation nor stress bearing any relation to the meaning of Shakespeare's lines.

 

Which reviewer…

37.- shares reviewer B's opinion regarding the production's relevance to the present day?_____

38.- holds a different opinion from the other reviewers as to whether Masan gives insight into the character of Hamlet?_____

39.- has the same view as reviewer C on the way Masan speaks?_____

40.- has a different view from reviewer A about the director's ideas for the production?_____

 

O’Dell, Felicity (2015) Advanced Trainer. 2^nd edition. Reading and Use of English Part 6 Test 5. Cambridge University Press: Dubai. Page Pages 158 and 159.