The Play’s The Thing
William Shakespeare
Performed by Mark Lockyer
Directed by Fiona Laird
Regeneration Theatre
Wilton’s Music Hall and touring
Star rating: 5
This one-person take on Hamlet is a phenomenal showcase for Mark Lockyer’s acting talent. One of the most riveting, focused accounts of the play I have ever seen, it is fast paced, accessible, exciting and moving.
Lockyer leaps, often literally, from role to role initially characterising the young Hamlet as a sulky, eyes-down teenager with his hands in his pockets and Claudius as a revoltingly smug politician carefully placing every word with a fake smile. His Polonius is so gloriously obsequious that it put me in mind of Alan Rickman playing slimy Mr Slope in the BBC’s 1982 Barchester Chronicles.
The speed of the shifts, aided by Tim Mitchell’s evocative lighting design, is electrifying from the first moment when Lockyer snaps out of quietly asking the audience to turn off mobile phones to the loud terror of the battlements at Elsinore. The actor, who wears neutral black trousers and casual shirt, and his director Fiona Laird have found simple ways of conveying instant characterisation, at least the first time some someone speaks. As Ophelia, he coyly strokes his imaginary hair. His Rosencrantz/Guildenstern is instantly recognisable as a creep. And he’s a pretty accomplished mime artist so this is a prop-free show.
It’s the voice work, however, which really makes this a special piece of theatre. Goodness knows how he does that throaty growl, like a man in the final stages of emphysema, for the ghost. We also get a higher pitched voice for Ophelia, a spirited vernacular for the grave digger and a lot more. It’s all nicely observed and nuanced but never exaggerated.
The mood switches are impressive too. There’s a lot of weeping – Lockyer is good at that – and his instant rebirth as the insouciant grave digger following a deeply distressed Laertes is one of many remarkable, instant transitions.
The text is an abridged version (90 minutes) of Shakespeare with very occasional single word substitution for 21st century clarity. The willow grows, for example, by the brook rather than “aslant” it in Gertrude’s account of Ophelia’s death. And it works supremely well not least because Lockyer and Laird have found ways of stressing words which usually go unnoticed so that it sounds surprisingly modern. All the famous soliloquies, for example, come over as spontaneous thought complete with natural pauses. Moreover, and often related to the fresh interpretation of the lines, they have a gift for finding humour where there isn’t usually any.
This show is also a great feat of stamina. Hamlet is a gruelling role under any circumstances and when you do all the other parts as well it must be extraordinarily taxing. Lockyer does it with only the tiniest breaks – an occasional ten second retreat to stage left shadow to wipe his face and take a swallow of water.
On the night I saw this show there was a subsidiary drama in the form of a front row audience member, text in hand, who apparently wanted to redirect it and kept bobbing up and down and offering brief interjections. Front of house staff tried, to no avail, to ease him out quietly while Lockyer continued undaunted. In the end, half an hour in, the show had to be stopped and the man escorted out. Lockyer bounded after them. Then he returned to the stage, told the audience that he’d spoken to the man and made sure he was “OK” before speaking to the tech people across the audience and announcing where he going from. Then he dropped back into role as if nothing had happened. The whole incident was handled with commensurate, admirable, unruffled professionalism.
Do not miss this show. It runs at Wiltons until 12 April and is touring rurally and regionally this summer.
