Hamnet by Royal Shakespeare Company and Neal Street Productions, in association with Hera Pictures at the Garrick Theatre (review)

Reviewed by: Hamnetby Royal Shakespeare Company and Neal Street Productions, in association with Hera Pictures at the Garrick Theatre Evelyn Reidy HamnetPresented by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Neal Street Productions, in association with Hera Pictures at the Garrick Theatre, London. 3009 2023– 1702 2024. Written by Maggie O'Farrell. Adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti. Directed by Erica Whyman. Design by Tom Piper. Lighting design by Prema Mehta. Sound design by Simon Baker. Music by Oğuz Kaplangi. Movement by Ayse Tashkiran. Fights by Kate Waters. Casting by Amy Ball CDG. With Madeleine Mantock (Agnes), Tom Varey (William), Phoebe Campbell (Susanna), Alex Jarrett (Judith), Ajani Cabey (Hamnet/Thomas Day), Sarah Belcher (Joan), Gabriel Akuwudike (Bartholomew), Mhairi Gayer (Tilly/Caterina/Shakespeare's Landlady), Peter Wright (John/Will Kempe), Liza Sadovy (Mary), Frankie Hastings (Eliza), Will Brown (Burbage/Father John), Frankie Hastings (Eliza), Karl Haynes (Ned), and Hannah McPake (Jude). In a theatrical and scholarly landscape dominated by the First Folio's 400 thanniversary, Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnetat the Garrick Theatre presented a welcome attempt at shifting Shakespeare slightly off his pedestal. Adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti ( Life of Pi, Red Velvet) and directed by Erica Whyman, the London production followed the enormous success of O'Farrell's 2020 novel and a run at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Tom Piper's multilevel wooden set for the Garrick offered the opportunity to peek "behind the curtains" of a seventeenth-century theater—complete with ropes, ladders, and pulleys—providing a privileged view of the theatrical world often inaccessible to non-professionals. Of course, the theater the audience were granted backstage access to was that of William Shakespeare—dubbed "the greatest writer in the English language" multiple times by the production's marketing copy. In a magical moment towards the end of the second half, clever rearranging of the set transformed this private, backstage space into the public stage of The Globe—the audience immediately transported from the dreary, domestic world of Stratford-upon-Avon to the flashy, theatrical space of early modern London. However, it is this privileging of theatrical over domestic space that ultimately resulted in Hamnetfalling short of End Page 75its mission to illuminate the oft-overlooked lives of the family whom Shakespeare left behind to pursue success in the city. The somewhat frenetic and rushed pacing of the play is in stark contrast to the languorous, dreamlike pace of the novel. The result of adapting O'Farrell's 384-page story into two hours on stage was a production that felt devoid of stillness: a race-to-the-finish take on the life of the Shakespeare family that seemed determined to squeeze in as much historical detail as possible with little time to see the characters live in the everyday. Though the novel weaves in and out of time, working in flashback and memory, Chakrabarti's restructuring of the plot was part of a mission to make the story more straightforwardly "theatrical." In an interview in the program, Chakrabarti explains her choices regarding Hamnet's plot: "Ordering things chronologically means that … Hamnet isn't born until halfway through the play. It felt like a problem initially, but as I carried on, I became clear that his mother Agnes is the main character." By foregrounding Agnes in this chronological treatment, Chakrabarti aimed to create a "physical logic" to the story, resulting in Hamnet himself (Ajani Cabey) fading into the background, and ultimately dampening the emotional effect of his tragic death. This choice to privilege theatrical "logic" meant that Chakrabarti utilized dialogue to provide a great deal of the historical and personal context for the events of the play: several early scenes featured exchanges so laden with exposition that it left little room for poetry or nuance. These exposition-heavy scenes were perhaps due to the significant amount of stage time the play allowed for Will and Agnes's courtship, scenes made more enjoyable by the excellent chemistry between Tom Varey and Madeleine Mantock. While Hamnetshowed Will and Agnes as lovers, there was comparatively little of them as parents for a play named after one of their children...