*Hamlet,* May 2 2026

Sam I and I saw the London National Theatre’s Hamlet at BAM on May 2, 2026.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMY5MWOQsfw

The production was directed by Robert Hastie, best known right now for directing Operation Mincemeat on Broadway (which neither of us has seen, and Sam sees a lot). It was advertised as a “witty, fearlessly contemporary take” on the play. Mincemeat has a reputation of being manic and madcap so I was curious to see how that sensibility would work with Shakespeare’s tragedy.

It worked very well! I often find that a cheeky, breezy presentation of a drama is a good choice - - it allows the audience to have a good time (rather than be exhausted from the beginning) and allows the intense moments to have a bigger impact. The set design by Ben Stones was particularly effective, a unit set with wainscoting along the bottom of the walls and a whimsical painted mural above it depicting a forest on the center wall and a war between the Danes and the Norwegians on the right wall (I couldn’t quite see what was on the left wall, from where I was sitting). It sent a message of upscale good taste.

The set for the play-within-a-play changed to a room lined with red velvet curtains. Hastie made the clever choice to stage the play as a parody of a done-on-the-cheap downtown theatre production. This got laughs from the BAM audience, which has sat through countless shows like that (some of them at BAM).

The actor playing Hamlet, Hiran Abeysekera, was a bit of a disappointment. His voice was a little raspy, which often made it difficult to understand what he was saying. The bigger problem was that his line readings all seemed to be carefully planned and rehearsed. This isn’t the way to do Shakespeare. I wish I knew where I read this but someone once said the trick with Shakespeare is to get the audience to believe that you actually TALK that way. He didn’t come close to achieving that.

The actor playing Claudius, Alistair Petrie, totally aced that test. His way with the language was effortless. I’ve always thought Claudius was one of the strongest characters in the play - - he’s a villain but a complex and attractive villain.

The setting and vibe was contemporary and the play withstood that (Shakespeare built good bones on his plays). One of Sam's favorite touches was adding serious undertones of affection between Hamlet and Guildenstern. It's not clear if there was something Extra going on but it's clear they were very close.

Hastie did three things to strengthen the presence of women in the show. First, Francesca Mills’s characterization of Ophelia was totally grounded, never fragile or girlish. Her mad scene was astonishingly raw and brutal. Second, Hastie took the monologue of the Player King and gave it to the Player Queen, played by Maureen Beattie and billed as “First Player” in the program. Sam was very taken with her rich voice - - English stage actors have such a talent for using their voices. And third, Hastie cast Hamlet’s best friend Horatio with a woman: not a woman playing a man but as a female character. It didn’t, for me, have much of an impact on the relationship between Hamlet and Horatio and it was a treat to see a woman in one of the key roles in a male-heavy play.

He did a few other things to make the casting more diverse than what you think of for Hamlet. The cast had plenty of white Brits but Abeysekera is from Sri Lanka, the woman playing Gertrude (Ayesha Dharker) is Indian-English, there were people of color sprinkled throughout the cast, and the Ophelia was a little person. Best of all, none of these things really had any impact on the storytelling.