REVIEW
Hamlet
Freewill Shakespeare Festival
Runs until July 15
Hawrelak Park’s Heritage Amphitheatre
Tickets: Visit www.freewillshakespeare.com or at the door
We all know Hamlet, the tale of a brooding Danish prince in black. Or certainly, some parts of the play. Possibly snippets from the famous soliloquies, or the image of a man cradling a skull.
But truly understanding the play as a towering tragedy and its dizzying poetry is a challenge for both actor and audience.
Yet in some ways, Hamlet is surprisingly malleable. We know how it ends. But what we understand about the characters, their motivations and relationships depends on the director’s vision, and how the actors deliver their lines and fill up spaces between words.
What sort of Hamlet is Hunter Cardinal playing in the Freewill Shakespeare Festival now on at Hawrelak Park until July 15?
The young actor plays an idealistic, self-dramatizing rebel bent on blind revenge that leads to the destruction of the entire royal family. Yet despite his petulance and explosive temper, he comes across as a charming young man who loves and deeply misses his father. But it is his unbridled rage that keeps the audience on edge throughout the three-hour production.
In the play’s back story, Hamlet returns from university to Elsinore after his father has died. His Uncle Claudius is king and his mother married the new ruler only two months after her husband’s death.
On the night I saw Hamlet, the extra special effects started about 10 minutes before the regular start time. Distant thunder, lightning and an eerie wind appearing to warn of evil deeds blew across the Heritage Amphitheatre’s outdoor arena.
As if on cue, bells toll and fog rolls across the stage as the voiceless, pale ghost of Hamlet’s father (Kevin Sutley) strolls the ramparts terrifying guards. But when the ghost of the old King Hamlet appears a second time, he reveals his murder and commands his son to kill Claudius.
As Hamlet grapples with the words of the ghostly apparition, the conflicted prince goes from a mourning son to a rebel with a cause to a young man bent on a twisted vengeance.
Is Hamlet hallucinating or slowly going mad with grief and revenge?
The prince’s self-examining solitude reveals a tortured soul who confronts his mother’s relationship with his uncle and his own affections for the gentle Ophelia with an increasing degree of hostility.
As Hamlet's anger and vengeance strengthens, his love for Ophelia diminishes. At one point, he unleashes a shocking rant and berates her, screaming “Get thee to a nunnery.”
While Hamlet’s character spirals downward, Hunter delivers lyrical soliloquies tempered with conflicting emotions of temper and doubt. Despite the teenage angst, his portrayal remains sensitive and astute, and he delivers the text as if it just sprang to mind rather than reciting a historical script.
But all the players compel us to question something. Ashley Wright as Claudius is commanding, and dazzlingly manipulative in addition to genuinely expressing love for his wife Gertrude.
Meanwhile Nadien Chu’s Queen Gertrude is as much a confused and worried mother as an affectionate wife. But it’s Gianna Vacirca’s bubbly and devoted Ophelia that brings a degree of balance, stability and ultimately sadness to the duplicitous landscape.
And Robert Benz’s Polonius is a constant delight, one-third old sage, one-third old fool and one-third loving father while Nathan Cuckow as Laertes is the obedient son and protective brother.
One of this production’s themes is how family bonds are both lasting and flimsy. This Hamlet leaves people room to think in unexpected ways.
