This year’s Dream in High Park production is Hamlet directed by Jessica Carmichael.  Now Hamlet is an interesting choice for this format because it is, notoriously, a really long play and the High Park format demands something that comes in around two hours.   A full blown Hamlet, as in the Branagh film lasts over four hours and even with the usual stage cuts it’s a three hour plus project.  So getting it down to two hours rather meands that it’s almost as much Carmichael’s Hamlet as Shakespeare’s.

So what’s gone and what’s left?  Unsurprisingly all the Norwegian politics is in the bin.  It usually is.  For the rest, it’s trimming here and there while leaving most of the bits most people will recognise; Hamlet and Claudius’ soliloquies, the ghost, the grave diggers, The Murder of Gonzago, the duel at the end.  The effect, since they have a lot of the big speeches, is to emphasise Hamlet and Claudius and their relationship at the expense of, in particular, the ladies.  Gertrude and Ophelia both seem somewhat marginal in this production.  Even Ophelia’s mad scene pretty much disappears.

There’s also a sense that Carmichael is going for laughs wherever they can be found (and last night’s audience found them in some odd places indeed).  Now, Hamlet does have some humour.  What Shakespeare play doesn’t (except the comedies).  Here it’s pretty broad.  Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are played almost as a clown act reinforced by the fact that actors are doubling as the gravediggers.  Polonius too seems to be milking it where a more deadpan approach might actually be funnier.  Overall it rather undermines the tragic qualities of the play.  We don’t get enough of Ophelia or Gertrude to care about them and Hamlet himself doesn’t really have the time or space to fully engage us.  So when he dies… so what?

All that said there’s some pretty good acting where it matters.  Qasim Khan’s Hamlet is well articulated.  His handling of the text suggests he knows what it means and what matters.  He gets full value out of the big moments.  Diego Matamoros is, unsurprisingly, a  complex and regal Claudius.  More than anyone he conveys a sense that something really is rotten un the state of Denmark.  Raquel Duffy would probably be a very good Gertrude in a production that gave her more space to be one.  Something similar could be said about Beck Lloyd’s Ophelia.  She managed to convey a rather charming sense of vulnerability but that’s pretty much it.  The rest of the cast, mostly playing multiple roles, did what the production demanded but I didn’t think anyone really stood out.

In the end, as I reflect on all this, I think the root problem is that a really effective two hour Hamlet is a very tall order.  The director has to make tough choices and she has.  The cast do a very decent job of pulling off that production concept.  The end result is an OK two hours of theatre but it’s defininitely Hamlet lite.

Canadian Stage’s production of Hamlet runs in the amphitheatre in High Park until September 1st.

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz