“Hamlet”, Bell Shakespeare. Directed by Peter Evans. At The Playhouse until April 16. Reviewed by SIMONE PENKETHMAN.

FOR a text so well known, Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” loses none of its depth and mystery over endless re-telling. It is a vivid portrayal of unthinkable family breakdown and tragedy. 

In his program notes, Bell Shakespeare’s artistic director Peter Evans acknowledges “what a different world we live in since we first made this show”. He is referring to this tour being the company’s third attempt. Seasons in 2020, and 2021 were both curtailed by COVID-19 lockdowns.

The setting in the stylish early ’60s highlights a tension between generations. Evans goes on to write that, “the ability to feel alone and together is a central concern of this play”.

White, shag-pile carpet simultaneously evokes a quiet, claustrophobic interior, and a silent, snowy landscape with a forest beyond. 

As the audience enters the theatre and at other times during the show, nostalgic home movies are projected on the set. They star a young Hamlet and his mother Gertrude (Lucy Bell) playing together in idyllic holiday memories. 

Now the simple mother-and-child relationship is complicated by the death of a father and the mother’s remarriage to the young man’s uncle.

Despite their positions of power, the parental generation cannot escape their children’s torment.

Harriet Gordon-Anderson’s Hamlet, Rose Riley’s Ophelia and Jack Crumlin’s Laertes all have a captivating impulsivity that radiates both vulnerability and danger. Their passion, confusion and moments of madness hold a mirror to many families across the world in these peri-pandemic times.

Gordon-Anderson triumphs in Shakespeare’s most coveted and challenging role. There is power and restraint in her portrayal of a young man consumed by his own grief and rage.

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