Benedict Cumberbatch’s “Hamlet” officially opened at the National Theatre on April 25 after weeks of hysterical media coverage one might expect from a production billed as “the fastest-selling play in British history” and starring an actor who is near the apex of his fame.The reviews are unlikely to dim Cumberbatch’s luster and will even add to a reputation recently bolstered by his Oscar nomination for “The Imitation Game” and his turn in the TV series “Sherlock.” On the other hand, director Lyndsey Turner’s frenetic production wasn’t completely free of brickbats.Paul Taylor, writing in The Independent, called it “a rather mixed affair,” praising Cumberbatch’s “whirling energy” but to little impact. “The production feels curiously uninvolving as though it lacks a central impulse,” wrote Taylor. “I hope that Cumberbatch does more live Shakespeare in less pressurized circumstances.”Dominic Cavendish reported in The Daily Telegraph, “Cumberbatch admirers can take heart, his female devotees are entitled to swoon: in this trial of his acting strength, he emerges, unquestionably, victorious. But — and ay, here’s the rub — he is, in truth, a blazing five-star Hamlet trapped in a middling, three-star show.”And Ben Brantley of the New York Times wrote, “Full of scenic spectacle and conceptual tweaks and quirks, this ‘Hamlet’ is never boring.” But, he added, “when a director throws out such tantalizing gimmicks, she’d better be prepared to follow through on them. Here they just seem like avant-garde window dressing.”Some of those gimmicks include a back-packing Horatio, a ditsy Ophelia taking photos with a box camera, a storm of detritus pelting a set by Es Devlin of staircases, family portraits, dead flowers, stuffed animals heads, and costumes that, for Cumberbatch, include a scarlet military jacket, a David Bowie t-shirt, and a hoodie.The reviews are irrelevant to the show’s commercial prospects. The run is sold-out and scalpers have reportedly been getting as much as $2,340 per ducat. The production has been a cause celebre since it was announced with breathless reports of the actor’s fans — the self-dubbed “Cumberbitches” — crowding around the stage door. Cumberbatch took advantage of that buzz one night during previews to plead to his fans to use their social media savvy to get out the word that electronic media used by audience members during a performance was incredibly distracting to the actors. “I can see cameras. I can see red lights in the auditorium,” he told them.An international audience will be able to judge just how effective Turner’s production is on October 15 when a performance is broadcast in select theaters around the globe as part of the “National Theatre Live” series.Turner, by the way, mounted a brilliant production of “Machinal,” starring Rebeca Hall, for the Roundabout Theatre in 2014, which was just as daring and experimental as her “Hamlet” appears to be. For this go around, she has apparently taken the opportunity to cut down Shakespeare’s most famous play and to stage it at breakneck speed.The running time of three hours for this “Hamlet” is significantly shorter than other productions, which often run at least an hour longer. At 4,042 lines, “Hamlet” is the Bard’s longest play — Elizabethan dramas were on average 3,000 lines — and the actor playing the title role must memorize nearly 1,500 of them. It is the Everest of acting and is not for the faint-hearted.In a 1989 production of “Hamlet” at the National Theatre, Daniel Day Lewis left the stage mid-performance and never returned, either to the performance or, for that matter, to stage acting. It was a literal case of stage fright as it took place during the scene in which Hamlet confronts the ghost of his father. Chances remain undiminished that we’re likely to see a limited Broadway engagement of “Hamlet” as soon as Cumberbatch’s busy schedule will allow. Prepare for “Hamlet Hysteria, Part II” when that comes to pass.
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