With, for instance, Mariah Gale’s astonishing Ophelia - the strongest, most forceful interpretation of the character I’ve ever seen - Tennant creates a sense of a preexisting relationship, one perhaps not merely romantic in a remote way: with just a touch between them at the end of the first court scene, a sort of intimate expression of solidarity, they hint at a more physical relationship than the play usually suggests. But I’ve never felt that more about Hamlet than I did with this production. Of course, that’s always true - a play, even one so centered on a single character as this one, even one that rises or falls on the performance of the actor in that role - cannot exist without the other characters who make up his world, without the other actors who support him. I infinitely prefer a Hamlet like this one: Tennant curls up on the floor, overcome with grief, to deliver the “oh that this too too solid flesh would melt” soliloquy, as if he can barely articulate his own sorrow he wanders the stage in old jeans and a ragged T-shirt to wonder over the option of being or not-being as if he’s just discovering the concept that offing himself might be the answer to all his problems.Īnd how’s this for an ironic GenX twist? The generation that always gets the short end of the stick gets a Hamlet who gets the short end of the stick: We cannot say the triumph that is this Hamlet is Tennant’s alone. I listened to another playgoer who saw the same performance I did complain that she was disappointed that he did not speak in verse, and I thought, What?! All I can figure is that she wanted to see him declaiming his lines with a distinct iambic pentameter rhythm, as if he were reciting them instead of living them.

Tennant’s Hamlet feels offhand, spontaneous, and natural.

He’s got one hand in his pocket, and the other one is flipping off the world.

But everything’s not gonna be fine, fine, fine. He’s peeved not to be taken seriously but isn’t at all surprised when he isn’t (all his interactions with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have a kind of resigned inevitability to them). He’s snarky and self-deprecating: he hates himself, but he hates everyone else, too. His Hamlet is our Hamlet: a spin on the Prince of Denmark with a palpable GenX vibe. David Tennant’s Hamlet is thrilling… and not just because I’m a fan of the actor.

Hamlet full movie 2009