Hamlet on Broadway, Jude Law at Backstage
Michael Grandage’s “Hamlet” at the Broadhurst was the first live performance I saw of the 4 hour long play. I am hesitant to talk about the performance itself since I can never be sure if it was Jude Law I watched the whole time or the conflicted character of a Shakespearean hero.
For me Jude Law was just too perfect to be as indeterminate, skeptic, convoluted as Hamlet is. His exaggerated performance, anger and loud voice seemed to be just an effort to diminish his natural confidence. To put my feelings into more formal words, here is an excerpt from John Lahr’s review of the play, published last week in New Yorker.
“(of Jude Law)…no matter how expert his technique or how potent his charisma, Law can’t hide his metabolism. He is easy in himself. He is affable. He is dashing. It’s impossible to conceive of him as “pigeon-liver’d” or lacking in “gall.” He has a solidity that Hamlet does not…Paralysis is not part of Law’s DNA. His Hamlet is essentially heroic: for him, there is no issue between being and seeming. “To be, or not to be” is never the question; he just is.”
I have no words however to describe the magic created on stage. It was one of the best modernization attempts I’ve ever witnessed. From costumes to lighting to stage direction everything was fit to contemporary liking.
“How stand I then, / That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d”, Hamlet will ask until end of time as Jude Law leaves backstage to sign autographs and ride his SUV.
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