photo by Vivian McGregor
From the program:
I first encountered Hamlet like many of us do at high school (just as I was stepping into theatre more eagerly and away from the piano I’d been playing for most of my young life). I watched the Zeferelli film with Our Mel and Glenn Close. I was called upon to read the part of Hamlet as we read aloud in class. I remember a young man standing before the class and speculating over the many available queer readings of the text and looking, challengingly, into another boy’s eyes. Along with these touchstones the staggering final moments of this tragedy have lingered with me since that time and over the years I’ve paid more and more attention to the resonances of Shakespeare’s standalone powerhouse – its sounds, its poetry, its depth of expression. So, here we are again looking at ourselves reflected at our most human through an old play and through Horatio, whom Harold Bloom has observed as one who ‘desires no existence apart from the prince’ and yet apparently remains ‘too drab to be theatrical’. What else can be made of the storyteller within the story? How does a story survive? If all stories carry truth which ones weigh more? Let’s find out.
Adelaide Theatre Guide Review
