Hamlet at the Teatre Lliure

Hamlet

Sunday, 17 March, that is, tomorrow, marks the final performance of the 2016 Teatre Lliure version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Adapted and directed by Pau Carrió, the long Elizabethan drama is slimmed down to a scant three hour performance. So this production in Catalan has found ways to pare down both text and staging to an austere minimum. As to the latter, the multiple gray doors—mousetrap hammers?—on the (usually) brightly lighted stage are all that comprise the set. One of them, perhaps unwisely left ajar, even serves as “arras” behind which Polonius bites the dust. So many doors might be seen as invoking the multiple ways this well known Shakespearean piece can be (and has been) staged. Then there is the lighting, which at critical moments is left on above the heads of the audience, providing a metatheatrical scrim to spice up Carrió’s modern day dress presentation. The mirroring effect of the doors is, intentionally or not, echoed by the fact that some of the actors play two roles, although this could be another nod to austerity. As to the text, the dialogue is snappy, as it must be in a successful Hamlet, and true of course to the Lliure’s postmodernist conceptualization of Elizabethan wit. One may (this one did) miss the Players whom Hamlet convinces to deliver his Mousetrap lines as he baits the king he desires to kill. The absence of the Players is substituted by a reading (as opposed to a “play”). This is performed by some of the actors, providing still more doubling. And the result is of course the same as in more traditional Hamlets—Claudius spills his whiskey as he guiltily rises and rushes offstage.

A play this well known and so often and diversely represented obviously offers many challenges regarding both mise-en-scène and textual choice. One might, I think, quarrel with some features of dialogue delivery in this version. Possibly also with the outfitting of Ophelia’s tomb.  But the shortening of the text as well as its fast-paced delivery are sound. Some tickets may still be available… (link >>

http://www.teatrelliure.com/en/agenda/temporada-2015-2016/hamlet