Hamlet: All Hail to the King has easily become one of my favorite shows that I’ve seen on this trip. The tragic storytelling portrayed through contemporary dance set alongside the emotive music from the rock band, Radiohead’s 6th album was explosive. The complexities of the new King, Claudius’s corruption, Gertrude’s emotional entrapment, Ophelia’s despair, and Hamlet’s declining mental health surged with a lust for vengeance, made the narrative captivating. All these aspects were justly interpreted and expanded upon in this unique adaption.
Hamlet can be a rather heavy and long piece of theater, ranging to 4 hours long if spoken every piece of dialogue from its original text is. However, this production condescends the work into a 1 hour and 40-minute production filled with both the gravity and comedy tidbits from the original work. I was on the edge of my seat for the majority of the whole performance while still having time to catch my breath and sit back during some of the sentimental parts. I loved the interpretation of the scenes and the demonstration of different relationships between the characters and each character’s unique struggle. All the parts from the original Hamlet that I wanted to be fleshed out and explored could take life on this stage. The set was mysterious, decorated with fantastic lighting design and intentional set pieces as hanging black coats to give a dystopian vibe. Each actor understood their character vastly, displaying clear objectives and motivations.
Aside from the stupendous acting and dancing, the music added incredible weight to the emotional retelling of Hamlet in the Royal Shakespeare Company. “Radiohead front man Thom Yorke has reworked the band’s critically acclaimed album into a deconstructed score that illuminates the text and is performed by live musicians.” Music was able to explore the emotions that the characters were feeling when they were unable outright to explain the complexities of their inner worlds through spoken words.
Theatre in London U of A 