The Best ‘Hamlet’ Ever?

By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN — I remember a poem by Carl Sandburg about how actors all want to play Hamlet: “…because it is sad like all actors are sad / and to stand by an open grave with a joker’s skull in the hand and / then to say over slow and say over slow wise, keen beautiful words / masking a heart that’s breaking, breaking, / This is something that calls and calls to their blood…”

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous play, and I’ve seen it done over the years numerous times by actors ranging from Laurence Olivier to Cleavon Little, Donald Moffat to and Kenneth Branagh, and even an African-American woman who played the role at Yale. I believe Sandburg knew what he was talking about: actors really aspire to the challenge of taking on the part of the young  prince forced into a situation where the times were out of joint, and he was expected to violate all his own moral beliefs by trying to put things right.

For any actor given the chance to play the role, so much remains to be interpreted: Why is Hamlet so indecisive? Is he really mad? Is he a wimp? Is he a neurotic teenager, caught up in the throes of unresolved Oedipal conflicts? Is he an intelligent, decent man faced with an insurmountable moral dilemma?

Now Long Wharf Theatre is staging a production of the play with the title role played by a relative newcomer, Hamish Linklater. His interpretation of the character is simultaneously so powerful and at the same time accessible, that it is the best I have ever seen. He is young, handsome, intelligent, thoughtful and tormented, and he makes his audiences care enough about him that he keeps their sympathy and doesn’t lose patience.

As audience members were heard to comment, “I could understand every word he said.” The imagery of the “slow, wise beautiful words” comes through clear and meaningfully.

Bulgarian director Mladen Kiselov has given the play an earthy, physical interpretation. Mariana Dimitrova’s Gertrude expresses her anxiety by taking periodic swigs from the wine bottle that is one of the few props in the minimalist staging. Mireille Enos’s Ophelia is frankly sexual in her overtures, and it is easy to believe that Joseph Siravo, the leering, swaggering, Claudius, is a regular on The Sopranos.

This production, which continues for a few more weeks, is well worth seeing. There is one caveat: the show is three hours long, and it would be a good idea to have a piece of chocolate or other energizing ration to keep you awake through the first act (until the action starts to pick up).

Business was booming around the refreshment stand during the first intermission, and people in the audience looked much more alert after that.

(Performances continue Tuesday through Sunday evenings, plus weekend matinees, until May 23. Long Wharf Theatre, at 222 Sargent Drive, can be reached for performance, curtain, and other details by calling 203-787-4282.)