Photo credit: www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment
On April 26th 2011, I was privileged to witness a premier of “Hamlet (2011)”, by William Shakespeare, as performed by the newly founded Ottawa Shakespeare Company in association with the Ottawa Theatre School.
I have to say, overall I was impressed.
The Company decided to go “modern” with one of the Bard’s most famous plays; meaning, they wore modern clothes, had modern sets and had cell phones. Everything else is the same. They essentially brought Baz Luhrman’s (Romeo + Juliet (1996)) take to the table. They do speak Elizabethan English the whole time.
The cast was pretty solid. Many talked far too fast for the understanding of the audience. There were, however, a few pleasant surprises: Katie Bunting (Ophelia) enchanted us with her blues-y/jazz-y voice. Michael Mancini (Hamlet) certainly makes up for his size with an immense presence; his performance as the title role is both daring and haunting. He definitely delivers, even when kissing another man whilst wearing a velvet dress or running around in his petite white underwear. You could tell that Mancini not only understood the words of the Bard, but he also knew how to communicate them emotionally and in context to the audience members who had a harder grasp on the Olde English.
The troupe wished to make Shakespeare more accessible, and Mancini certainly delivered here, proclaiming the “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy whilst walking amongst audience members. His dramatic pauses gave emphasis to his words and gave the audience time to ingest and translate what they had just heard. The other actors mainly just talked too fast.
Overall, at the end the cast was met with roaring applause, which doubled when Mancini entered. Those applause were very well deserved.
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