British actor-comedian Eddie Izzard performs 23 roles in her one-person Hamlet. Photograph by Carol Rosegg. (Banner photograph by Amanda Searle.)
Great love and labor has clearly gone into the performance of Eddie Izzard’s 2½-hour solo Hamlet. The adaptation by Mark Izzard (Eddie’s older brother) is generally true to Shakespeare’s text, the split-level set by Tom Piper is wisely uncluttered, and Izzard delivers Shakespeare’s verse with remarkable ease.
Izzard performs Hamlet’s soliloquies at the lip of the stage, up-close and personal to the audience. Photograph by Amanda Searle.
Directed by Selina Cadell, the production got its stage legs at Greenwich House in February before transferring to the Orpheum Theatre on March 19. Reportedly, Izzard invited the public to open rehearsals at Greenwich House, followed by Q & A sessions with the audience. One can only admire Izzard’s courage in allowing the public to see her show-in-process before it became the well-oiled machine that now at the Orpheum.
Even if one has seen dozens of Hamlets in live performance, Izzard’s solo version is a unique experience. Dressed in black vinyl pants and a black jacket that has a peplum, Izzard performs 23 different roles by turning on a dime and delivering the polyphony of voices. As a transgender woman, and gender-fluid person, Izzard may well have an advantage for convincingly playing both the male and female roles.
All the Shakespearean themes are touched on, however briefly, from grief, greed, mental illness, betrayal, corruption, ambition, lust, and love. But at its heart is the story of Hamlet, the melancholy prince of Denmark who believes that he must revenge his father’s death.
Hamlet is not Izzard’s first go at drama. Izzard, who uses she/her pronouns, has starred in The Cryptogram and Race by David Mamet, played the title role in Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II, and nabbed a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in the play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. In film, Izzard has appeared in Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean Thirteen, and Valkyrie, to mention a few. What’s more, last year Izzard did a one-person show based on Charles Dickens’s coming-of-age novel, Great Expectations, at Greenwich House.
Izzard’s solo Hamlet, adapted by his brother Mark, is 13,500 words in length. Photograph by Amanda Searle.
Izzard seems most grounded when delivering Hamlet’s famous soliloquies. Izzard doesn’t perform them as inward ruminations of the prince but speaks them to the audience at the lip of the stage. It’s evident Izzard knows the importance of connecting to an audience up-close and personal. Perhaps that why Izzard’s “To be or not to be” doesn’t sound like an overworked cliché. Indeed, it becomes more like a reflecting pool in which audience members could not only see their own image but contemplate that “undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveler returns.”
Another plus to this performance is its length. For, considering that Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play at 4,024 lines, Izzard’s version has been whittled down by Mark Izzard to a mere 13,500 words. Often Hamlets turn into endurance tests for theatergoers, but this truncated version makes it much easier to sit through.
Piper’s set affords Izzard plenty of space to move around and reenact key dramatic moments from the play. Izzard also utilizes its two-level stage to fine effect. For example, when she impersonates Gertrude as she announced the drowning of Ophelia, one sees her standing upstage on the higher level, as if Gertrude herself were trying to get to higher ground as she says:
But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
The real strength of Izzard’s Hamlet is Izzard herself. She simply has a vast tool kit as an actor that enables her to inhabit a tragic figure like Ophelia or the spineless Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Izzard brings the two latter characters alive as sockless hand puppets, with her right and left hand working in perfect synch.
Eliza Thompson deserves a shout-out for her musical compositions, which enhance dramatic moments without overpowering them. And Tyler Elich’s inventive lighting, particularly during the Ghost scenes, adds some real spookiness to the show.
There’s much to like in Izzard’s Hamlet. For seasoned theatergoers, this production will prove that one doesn’t need a fancy set and expensive Elizabethan costumes to stage a satisfying Hamlet; for newbies to Shakespeare, this show may launch a lifelong passion for the Man of Avon’s works.
The production of Eddie Izzard’s Hamlet runs through April 14 at the Orpheum Theatre (126 2nd Ave.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; matinees are at 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit www.eddieizzard.com.
Playwright: William Shakespeare (adapted by Mark Izzard)
Director: Selina Cadell
Set: Tom Piper
Lighting: Tyler Elich
Costumes: Tom Piper & Libby da Costa
Music: Eliza Thompson
