Hamlet - the great domestic drama that explodes
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To Sara Powell in Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of Hamlet falls the challenge of playing Gertrude, one of Shakespeare’s great enigmas.
The production runs in The Minerva from September 6-October 4.
“She is often played as definitely in love with Claudius or having had an affair with Claudius and not having really loved the old king but there is no text to suggest that. We don't know why she marries him and I think what I'm finding is that she is OK and then halfway through the play Hamlet tells her what an absolute mess things are and things then fall apart. You have her joy and her hope and her swanning around in beautiful dresses but then it all falls apart. I have exquisite costumes for the swanning around but we have developed it so that the costumes are slightly less held together as her world starts to fall apart. Hamlet comes and says ‘What have you done? How can you have done this?’ And she realises what a mess she has made for Hamlet. I think Gertrude lives for Hamlet and she feels that she has destroyed his interior world.
“She is trying to hold it together but the challenge is that she does not have a lot of words to express it with. She does a lot of listening. Judi Dench said that she found her a frustrating character because she isn't given the words to express her thoughts. She doesn't get the airtime in the play but the fact is she doesn't get the airtime in the play because the play is called Hamlet! She is just one of several fascinating characters in a play which is actually called Hamlet!”
And that's why people come to see it: “People come along that have studied it and they love it and they want to hear how it is going to unravel. I've never done a play that is so well loved and so well known. The audience come along and they know that they're going to be there for a long time but the audience always feels so ready for it and so committed to it. It's incredible.”
And the Minerva is absolutely the right place for what is essentially a domestic drama: “There are a lot of politics, a lot of extraordinarily modern concepts in the speeches and there's exquisite text in that political aspect but those extraordinary concepts are set around a setting that is basically a domestic drama. You marry the father's brother and the son is really upset and you just wait for it to explode. You wait for the point where you can't hold it in it anymore, and the Minerva is the perfect space – a very immediate space for the tension to build.”