‘Hamlet’ Review: Cush Jumbo Ignites London Production

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There are two reasons that, among recent Hamlets, Cush Jumbo (“The Good Fight”) is right up there alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen. Like those two actors, Jumbo has dazzling ease on …

.” But frustratingly, also like Cumberbatch and McKellen, the actor is robbed of her full potential in the role by being caught in a flavorless, flaccid production.

Wearing jeans and close-cropped hair, Jumbo appears young without ever overplaying the “youthful” card. Her vigor ignites every scene she’s in. Hamlet is a character held back by inaction but, fascinatingly and without ever compromising the character’s necessarily stilted progression, Jumbo is never inert.

Would that her affecting dynamism were mirrored by the rest of the company. The last time a major UK company performed the text uncut was in 1992 when Adrian Noble directed Kenneth Branagh at the Royal Shakespeare Company with a near-five-hour running time. Director Greg Hersov speeds up proceedings via his editing of the text that cuts out the wider political perspective embodied by Fortinbras in favor of family fortunes and the strained dynamics among Hamlet and the court.

Elsewhere, however, the actors take so much time and are so over-deliberate that momentum is lost. At almost every beat of the text, Hersov seems to encourage them to take two. But although the intention is for clarity, slower is not necessarily more legible. Instead, the production becalms the play, as with Tara Fitzgerald’s Gertrude who, until her touching reveal of Ophelia’s death, lacks vigor.

 

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