Reviews 2006
Reviews 2006
✭✭✭✩✩
by William Shakespeare, directed Robert Ross Parker
Hope and Hell Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, Toronto
January 4-15, 2006
Playing Hamlet is difficult enough without playing all the other roles besides, but that’s exactly what Raoul Bhaneja does in his one-man version of Shakespeare’s play. It’s an ambitious experiment clearly intended as a tour de force of acting, but there is very little pay-off.
Bhaneja claims in a note that he wants to take the audience back to its first experience of the play. Unfortunately, Hamlet (solo) will be almost impossible to follow for anyone who has not previously studied the play in great detail. Shakespeare frequently depicts people spying on other people climaxing in the central scene where Hamlet watches Claudius watching a play depicting the murder Claudius committed. To bring off this scene or the final cascade of deaths plus realizations is difficult enough with a full cast. Acted by only person it becomes a confused mishmash.
Compounding the problem, Bhaneja does not clearly enough distinguish the 17 characters he plays. His Hamlet, Horatio, Claudius and Laertes are all far too similar. Bhaneja is a fine actor and would be superb if he concentrated his abilities on any of one these. However, the effort in playing all four (and everyone else) dissipates the effect and ultimately provides only a superficial overview of a masterpiece.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-01-12.
Photo: Raoul Bhaneja. ©Andrew Kenneth Martin.
2006-01-12
Hamlet (solo)