Alas, a female Hamlet dilutes the tragedy
THEY are doing some genderbending wit h Hamlet at Manchester’s Royal Exchange.
Maxine Peake, best known as Twinkle from TV’s Dinnerladies, plays the Dane. She does so as a man, with gamine hair.
Politician Polonius has turned into Polonia, the gravediggers are women (in hi-viz jackets), and other minor parts, which are normally male, including Rosencrantz, have become female.
It is an interesting take and works well in places. I found the first hour or so particularly watchable, but the novelty faded.
By the end, the limitations of Sarah Frankcom’s production — and Miss Peake’s performance — dilute the tragedy of this mighty play. Gillian Bevan’s Polonia is the most successful switcher. To have a mother give
Hamlet (Royal Exchange, Manchester) Verdict: Hamlet not him-let
all that fuss-pot advice to son Laertes before he goes back to university rang truer to our family experience than having it delivered by an elderly father.
Miss Bevan makes her character believable as a political schemer — she reminded me of ex Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard — and it suddenly makes sense that she should be admitted to Gertrude’s bedchamber to snoop on Hamlet when he visits the queen. I did, though, miss the father-daughter relationship between Polonius and Ophelia (Katie West). The show is not simply about gender change. Director Frankcom does the ghost scene by fizzing and dimming lots of lightbulbs. That is more successful than the decision to have half of the travelling players performed by children.
The graveyard scene has no soil. Instead, we are invited to believe that second-hand clothes are the earth, and that a rolled- up jumper is Osric’s skull. By now I was starting to long for the end.
Yet Miss Peake’s Hamlet, despite occasional weakness of vocal projection and a shortage of nobility, is likeable, memorable, unlike any other.
The Royal Exchange has had an overdue hit with t his production. A nifty idea may not make for the deepest art, but it can certainly sell tickets.