Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Who’s there? It’s the opening sentence of Shakespeare’s Hamlet — and a key theme of a play that questions so deeply what it means to be human. But in Eddie Izzard’s solo staging it takes on a whole new meaning. “Who’s there?” becomes a practical question as Izzard plays some two dozen characters, buzzing round the stage, switching from ghost to king to prince to hapless Ophelia, all the while holding discourse, as Gertrude would put it, “with th’incorporeal air”.It’s an impressive feat of memory — even trimmed down to two hours (by Izzard’s brother, Mark), Shakespeare’s tragedy is a mammoth consideration. Dressed in tight black trousers and a waisted jacket that faintly echoes Elizabethan silhouettes, Izzard zips from character to character using tiny adjustments in body language — a stiff gait for pompous Polonius, a booming voice for the duplicitous Claudius. It’s accessible too: Izzard has explained that she and director Selina Cadell wanted to draw on the popular street performances of old. Izzard is a brilliant comic and the comedy fares well — she’s funny as the garrulous gravediggers and has a droll solution for Hamlet’s malleable friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.But what of the pain and profundity of this great play, pitched on the border between life and death and soaked in grief and longing? What of Hamlet himself? That’s where this production really falls down. Izzard delivers “To be or not to be” thoughtfully. But any reading of Hamlet is hard to fathom. There is little interiority, little sense of the agony or gravity of his predicament nor the huge issues at stake, while the emotions of the other characters barely register. The crucial duel at the end veers perilously close to slapstick.Other recent solo shows — Andrew Scott in Vanya, Sarah Snook in Dorian Gray — have used the distilled set-up to explore the complexity of identity or the complicity between audience and actor. That’s on offer here in the opening “who’s there?” and in Izzard’s swift transitions from one character to another, irrespective of gender or class. But it doesn’t go anywhere. And while Tom Piper’s plain, bright cell of a set could suggest an examination of memory or madness, that too evaporates. Izzard is a charismatic, smart, genial performer who can hold a huge room, but neither that nor the work behind this are enough to reach the depths, layers and magnitude of Shakespeare’s profound masterpiece.★★☆☆☆To June 30, eddieizzardhamlet.com
