THE PRINCE AND THE BUTTERFLY





By Stefan Kanfer
New Leader
Vol. 78, Issue 5, p38, 2p
On Stage
June 5, 1995





A crestfallen university student comes home. The young man expected to inherit the family business after his father's recent death. But that was not to be. His mother has taken a new husband-his father's brother, no less--and now the uncle controls the glory, the money and the power. Without estate or position, seized by melancholia, the student considers doing away with himself. Then a thought occurs to him: Perhaps his uncle has murdered his father? In that case revenge should be the answer, not suicide. He devises a subtle and horrific plan. His tergiversations go on too long, though, with catastrophic results.

Such is the skeletal outline of Hamlet, and it is customarily neglected by actors and directors seeking to make a name for themselves. The ectoplasmic appearance of the senior Hamlet, the showpiece introspections ("To be, or not to be," "O! that this too too solid flesh would melt," "O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I"), the address to the players ("Suit the word to the action, the action to the word"), the Oedipal relationship of Hamlet and his mother Gertrude, the question of whether the protagonist is mad or sane--these traditionally take precedence over the story line. The production at the Belasco Theater, however, goes back to basics and creates an unexpected triumph.

Initial publicity releases offered little enticement. A cast of unknowns were to be led by Ralph Fiennes, an Englishman who pronounces his name Rafe Fines. He had played the fictive Nazi of Schindler's List; in Quiz Show he impersonated the real Charles Van Doren, scion of an intellectual family who faked his way to national celebrity. These film roles revealed a wide range, yet they hardly suggested an actor capable of the greatest part in the English language. Fiennes had neither the elegance of John Gielgud, nor the magnetism of Laurence Olivier, nor the thrumming egotism of Richard Burton, nor even, to cite a more recent Hamlet, the marquee value of Kevin Klein.

But as the work at the Belasco proves, Fiennes has something compelling of his own to offer: white heat. His Melancholy Dane begins with his back to the audience, then turns around and explodes in fervor and anguish. Like the rest of the cast, he is dressed in late Victorian costume. Unlike the others, his wardrobe reflects his state of mind. As the play progresses Hamlet's somber garments become fewer and more tattered, until, at the end, he is barefoot and almost shirt-less. By that time all the famous recitations have come and gone, and not one of them seemed familiar.

For one thing, the speeches are delivered at twice the normal tempo. For another, the costumes place the play in an indefinably European court just slightly before our century. And Fiennes makes all this appear logical: Hamlet speaks rapidly because everything around him is moving at indecent haste, from the unseemly remarriage of Gertrude (Francesca Annis), to the cascade of apothegms flowing out of that ultimate courtier, Polonius (Peter Eyre). No madness in this Hamlet; his are the impulses and hesitations of a Victorian undergraduate at the end of his tether. If he lacks an intellectual dimension, he more than compensates with emotional conviction.

When Elvis Presley died, an agent was reported to have exclaimed, "Good career move." One can imagine the same reaction to Fiennes' appearance in a production that irked the West End traditionalists, and that is playing a limited run in New York. For if the actor has made little immediate profit, he establishes a powerful stage presence and a phenomenal memory. From here on his agent can claim that he represents a legend.

Still, every star needs its firmament, and this Hamlet would not glitter without the support of virtuoso players. Annis radiates sexual attraction, but not toward her son. Those who expect the customary Freudian gloss must look elsewhere. Eyre invests Polonius with more dignity than pomposity, reversing the standard interpretation. As Claudius, James Laurenson blends nobility and villainy; Terence Rigby makes an admirably plebeian Gravedigger, doubles as the Ghost and triples as the Player King; Damian Lewis provides a vigorous Laertes and, in the role of Ophelia, Tara FitzGerald is a poignant victim, more affecting in her sane moments than in her scenes of lunacy.

Director Jonathan Kent, evoking his extraordinary production of Medea last season, made certain that a surprise lurks in every familiar corner. "I only direct contemporary plays," he commented when Hamlet was in rehearsal. "They happen to have been written 400 years ago or 2,000 years ago." The quest for novelty occasionally goes awry. In the scene with Yorick's skull, for example, light flows upward from the grave, a touch more appropriate for Stephen King than Prince Hamlet. James Acheson's costumes show the power of black except for Laertes' Graustarkian red and gold uniform. Similarly, Peter J. Davison's weighty set conveys a vanished grandeur--and then features contemporary angles and architectural styles. The mood is not abetted by "The Mousetrap," the play within the play, which includes some garish effects better suited to 42nd Street than to Broadway. But these are minor cracks in an artful presentation. Asked about his view- of Hamlet, Fiennes once stated, "There's a book by Ted Hughes about Shakespeare where he says that Hamlet is driving a truck toward the edge of a cliff with all of the characters in the play aboard. He has his foot on the brake, but he has his foot on the gas equally." It is the actor's triumph that he can accelerate and make three hours seem to pass in a moment; and that he can decelerate and make his heart seem to break in slow motion. Fiennes' last words onstage are "the rest is silence." They refer to the character, not the star. At 32 the rising player is poised to resound in movie houses and theaters deep into the next century.

 

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