I've come to the conclusion that I prefer my Shakespeare small and intimate; we went to see "Hamlet" at The Warehouse in Croydon last night - a cast of about a dozen crammed into a very small space indeed - and it was excellent.
The company was "The Factory" and the gimmick is that they perform Hamlet at least weekly, in different "secret" locations, using whatever space and scenery might be available, and with a castlist that changes, with performers learning multiple parts and finding out by lots just before Act 1 who they must play that performance.
Props are provided by the audience, moreover, and the MC throws in a "limiter" at the beginning of Act 2 and subsequent acts.
So last night they performed on the set of "Clocked" (see picture above) with one of that cast, Jonathan Oliver also playing, as Polonius!
In Act 2 the cast swapped seats with a dozen people from the audience and performed the whole act from amongst us; in Act 3 they had to conform to the rule that one cast member must be seated at all times, but there must never be an even number of seated people; in Act 3 there always had to be an unscripted cast member on stage, silently but appropriately supporting the action; in Act 4 the audience had to all change seats and in Act 5 no actor could sit down!
It sounds rather silly, and in some ways it was - especially when they used the daft props regular audience members had turned up with - but in fact the focus was faithfully kept on the words and emotions - there was no messing about with tricksy characterisations - and it gelled beautifully. Even when Hamlet and Laertes had it out at the end with make up wands, "wounding" each other with eyeliner to the face, it was so believable!
A most entertaining evening - I've become their Facebook groupie, and look forward to seeing them again elsewhere.
27/05/08 @ 13:34