Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The play\u2019s not really the thing in Aviva Studios\u2019 Hamlet Hail to the Thief, which uneasily fuses Shakespeare\u2019s tragedy with Radiohead\u2019s 2003 album. The join is about as seamless as the production\u2019s clunky title indicates: the two jockey for position, with Radiohead often coming out ahead.Still, sparks do fly from the friction. Radiohead\u2019s twitchy, ticking techno beats, which underscore much of the action, suggest time out of joint and anxiety ratcheting up in a state where a shifty new king has acquired his dead brother\u2019s throne and wife. As Prince Hamlet\u2019s suspicions of King Claudius rise, songs erupt into sudden frenzies. Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has orchestrated the album as a soundtrack that sends whines and wails through the drama like sirens. Lyrics dovetail with the drama to echo Hamlet\u2019s mounting mania, as in the opening \u201c2 + 2 = 5\u201d which ominously announces \u201cIt\u2019s the devil\u2019s way now\u201d, or \u201cThere\u2019ll be no more lies\u201d repeated in \u201cWhere I End and You Begin\u201d.Instead of the songs festooning the play, however, it often feels like the atomised scenes are used as segues between the music. Running at an unusually brisk 105 minutes, the production offers a medley of abridged Hamlet greatest hits. Overly insistent music reinforces every monologue with a background drone, the album rumbling impatiently, always trying to come through.Paul Hilton\u2019s Claudius often rocks away to the songs, at the centre of groups of dancers. He is a fantastically slippery, swaggering overlord, slinking across the stage like an oil slick. He is grotesquely carnal, too, licking Gertrude\u2019s neck and opening his mouth as wide as a snake to embrace her.Samuel Blenkin\u2019s Hamlet is every bit \u201cthe poor wretch\u201d. Pallid and gawky, with a quivering voice, he seems at war with his own body, torn between living and dying. When he says \u201cWhat a piece of work is a man\u201d, he speaks as if not recognising himself by that description.Lighting designer Jessica Hung Han Yun often frames characters in cage-like boxes, but these more intimate scenes clash with the generally maximalist staging. Shards of light dagger through the darkness while smoke and dust billow across Will Duke\u2019s immense video projections. The grief-soaked scenography by design collective AMP and production designer Sadra Tehrani is all monochromatic and melancholy. And monotone: oppressively bleak, it steamrollers the richness of the play so there are no subtleties or pockets of light.\u00a0Directors Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones telescope the production on the psychodrama between Hamlet and Claudius. But turning the play into a brash, scrappy revenge thriller leaves multiple casualties. Queen Gertrude all but vanishes, along with Hamlet\u2019s friendship with Horatio and romance with Ophelia. Her descent into suicidal despair is rushed, although her repeating his \u201cTo be or not to be\u201d reminds us that her fate is tethered to his nihilism.Charging through the plot creates a manic rhythm that scrambles clarity. The deaths in the final climax become a blurred brawl, without clear confessions and vengeance. It might illustrate how catastrophically everything unravels, but the sprint finish leaves us unmoved. It\u2019s a dizzyingly \u2014 rather than dazzlingly \u2014 propulsive show. \u201cThe rest is silence\u201d, Horatio tells us when it\u2019s all over. If only Yorke let us hear it.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606To May 18, factoryinternational.org; then Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, June 4-28, rsc.org.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The play\u2019s not really the thing in Aviva Studios\u2019 Hamlet Hail to the Thief, which uneasily fuses Shakespeare\u2019s tragedy with Radiohead\u2019s 2003 album. The join is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":306410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-306409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306411,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306409\/revisions\/306411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}