The Barbican Theatre’s production of Hamlet has been surprisingly controversial. The play is still in previews and the sheer fact that Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Hamlet means that the play was always going to be a financial success. Cumberbitches have come far and wide to see their Cumberlover in person as the Danish prince. But something is rotten in the state of Denmark… in this production. The early pre-press-night reviews have been awful, almost scathing. Most people agree that Bendy is fine as Hamlet, but the production itself is struggling. As it turns out, director Lyndsey Turner had flipped around huge chunks of dialogue so that the play STARTS with Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy (which comes in Act III in the traditional play). Even Benedict admitted (to fans) that he found it difficult. So guess what? Hamlet got another rewrite.
To rewrite, or not to rewrite: That is the question.A controversial twist in Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Hamlet has been abandoned after it was savaged during the previews. William Shakespeare’s original tragedy may be 400 years old, but there has been a last-minute rewrite of this mega-budget West End version after a withering two star verdict in The Times.
Director Lyndsey Turner had overhauled the Shakespearean masterpiece to open with the play’s iconic “To be or not to be” soliloquy. While some theater insiders praised the freshness of the radical approach, Times critic Kate Maltby described it as “indefensible…theatrical self-indulgence.” Her scathing review, published on the first night of previews, provoked a bitter backlash within the theater world, which was aghast that she had broken the convention of waiting for the official first night before writing a review.
Maltby defended her premature rejection of Cumberbatch’s Hamlet by citing the director’s major structural changes, which she felt limited the range available to the Sherlock star and infantilized the production. The overall structure, she argued, was unlikely to be altered during three weeks of previews. She was wrong.
With opening night still a week away, the producers have already abandoned their most innovative intervention. Turner’s unconventional opening scene has been cut and the crucial speech returned to its rightful home, as Hamlet plunges into the depths of despair in Act III.
It’s unclear who ordered a return to the structure conceived by Shakespeare, but Cumberbatch admitted last week that he was finding it difficult to open with such an emotional scene. “It’s not the easiest place to begin a play, full stop,” he said to fans outside the Barbican theater.
Well… I’m of two minds. First, this is why theatre critics traditionally do not review a play when it’s still in previews, because obviously the kinks still need to be worked out. But! I wonder if they would have rewritten/restructured the play to its more traditional structure if the early reviews hadn’t been quite so bad.
Meanwhile, Bendy did make an appearance at this weekend’s D23 Expo to promote Marvel’s Doctor Strange. He wasn’t there in person, but he sent a short video.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
The pictures included in this post are doing nothing for me. Ever since he got married it’s like his “hot” factor has gone down *gasp*
He really is looking awful these days – too thin, pale, and oddly slack – those profile pix of him signing autographs with his head down showing three folds under his chin haven’t done him any favors. I think he’s aging out of heart-throb territory quickly and perhaps it’s for the better.
Mm, he’s been looking pretty rough for months. It’s photos like these where I start to understand all the usual online comments saying ‘omg he’s so weird-looking why do people like him so much alien lizard blerg’ etc. I wouldn’t go as far as that but I do start to see where they’re coming from.
I don’t blame him for looking rough in these photos, though! Must be exhausting having to deal with all those crazy (?), overexited fans at the stage door after doing the play. Hell, I can barely make it to the subway after work – hating the crowds – while he has to interact with people and sign autographs with a smile. I APPLAUDE you, Ben!
He has dealt with tons of ”overexcited” fans before, and looked simply delicious. STID in Japan, anyone? The difference? He was at ease, happy and joyful of everything coming his way. This has really changed since – you know what.
Debating whether I should say something … So, if you didn’t know he got married his hotness wouldn’t have been affected?
@loli Yeah, guess you’re right, that was pretty crazy. I think he did look pretty overwhelmed in Japan as well, but not exhausted like yesterday. But everyone has a limit, and maybe he’s reached his? Whatever the reason, hope it doesn’t mean we’ll see less of him!
” I think he did look pretty overwhelmed in Japan as well, but not exhausted like yesterday.”
@ Kalypso
Well he hadn’t just got off stage after playing the main character in Hamlet for over 3 hours, in an apparently very physical and athletic manner. I would compare it more to an athlete finishing a race or a team player after a match. A quick shower and meet the throngs and doing this every night for 3 months. I defy anyone to look “hot” every night, think of the weight loss each night from fluid loss alone.
IMO he looks just fine.
Totally agree, that was the point I was trying to make further up thread! I applaude him for managing to meet all those fans with a smile on his face after just getting off stage. Totally naturally to look exhausted, which I still think he does. Fine, but exhausted 🙂
He’s way too thin. If you see him up close he’s really really thin. I had not realised he was that thin. He seems alright otherwise, but I am not sure he needed Hamlet at this stage in his life. Apparently (or so I have read, as said by him) he gets really anxious, to the point of being sick, before going on stage.
“Theatrical self-indulgence”? wonder if Turner hangs out with Sophie.
Okay, how many minutes until this is ALL Sophie’s fault?
ETA: ^haha^, all of the above?
It was Sophie’s fault since before Shakespeare wrote it Kiddo
Touche 🙂
I understand BC is an epoch used in dating years prior to the estimated birth of the ‘Comet’, so it goes back pretty far.
All these years, we didn’t realize that the time period “BC”= Before Cumberbatch.
*cackle*
Ha!
Let’s pelt her with James Middleton’s marshmallows for ruining Shakespeare!
He looks super homeless in that bottom pic.
He looks like he was smacked in the face with the Ben Affleck Shame and Regret Make Up Poof. It’s probably Sophie’s fault.
He’s maybe drinking Shia Labeouf’s kool-aid.
+1
He’s not hardcore enough for a Tupac tattoo…maybe he’d get Vanilla Ice. Or Snow.
https://youtu.be/Byh5k-m2SqI
You’re welcome.
He looks like that when he is not on the red carpet from what I’ve seen.
More points to him for rising to the star status with such looks and fashion sense.
Yeah, happy they caved. I’ve seen lots of a ante grade productions of Hamlet, but I wouldn’t have liked the “To Be” soliloquy in Act I. I’m a Shakespeare traditionalist. Looking forward to the NT Live production in October.
I feel very remiss that I have never seen Hamlet! It’s in Stratford (Ontario) this year, but for the first time in years I’m not seeing any plays in Stratford due to my car’s untimely death. Boo.
I am not glad at all. If you have a vision, stay with it. She saw the reviews and changed the play. So much for her vision.
Those cumbercurls! The hotness factor hasn’t gone down at all IMHO. 😉
Love me some cumbercurls!
“The early pre-press-night reviews have been awful, almost scathing.”
One reviewer, Kate Maltby, who earlier on Twitter had been scathing about fans, gave it two stars. This was after the first preview night and writers, journalists and actors all criticised her for it. Apart from the Daily Mail there were no other fully fledged pre-press night reviews.
It’s common to play with stuff during previews. Turner tried something, found it didn’t work, decided against it. Nothing unusual in that at all.
Oooops! This does not sound good. I wonder if the director played a bit fast and loose with the script since all the tickets sold out. But don’t they all make changes to how the text is played out? I lost count how many times Halmet had been on stage. If it’s the same thing always, who’d want to see it?
Who rewrites Hamlet? Arrogant much?
You know there is no definitive text of Hamlet, right? There is no such thing as “the proper text of Hamlet.” There are three entirely different published versions (the First Folio from 1623, the First Quarto otherwise known as the ‘Bad Quarto’ from 1603, and the Second Quarto from 1604) and all three have major differences, both in terms of things they include or leave out, and in terms of scenes being in a different order. In all three the ‘To be or not to be’ speech is different.
The most commonly performed ‘script’ of Hamlet combines parts from the Folio and the Second Quarto. Even if you choose just one version, it’s five hours minimum, so it’s practically always edited. I’m not defending placing the speech at the start (nor condemning it) but saying ‘hdu edit Hamlet’ shows a total ignorance of both the play and of Shakespeare/Shakespeare performance history.
Rewriting Hamlet? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. I will never understand how some women find this man hot or attractive. He reeks or arrogance and privilege.
REWRITING HAMLET? BY WHOM?
I guess everyone has their own “type” or attractions. I’ve never seen the appeal of Brad Pitt or many other men other women find attractive. To each their own!
Eh. Calmo, calmo 🙂
To rewrite respectively play around with the text of such a traditional play as this is very common in the modern theater world.
Nothing to get upset about 😉
Exactly. I’ve seen entire scenes cut out of Shakespeare productions. Mostly with little to no real effect on the final story development. The production of “the Scottish play” where they removed the entire “Out! Damn spot” monologue being the exception. That was just sheer stupidity on the director’s part.
I like some of his work but am put off him as a person for what you stated above – the more successful the became the more arrogant and snotty he got.
And Yes, who rewrites Shakespeare? An arrogant fool apparently.
um, it’s super common to revise these plays because they’ve been done to death so lol
godfishgoldgirl, why not Cheez-its?
Ssh! More cheeze-its for us. Although goldfish are good too
Well, Cumberbatch didn’t have anything to do with the edits made to the text.
Curious, Meme, when you say ‘re-writing Hamlet’ are you a Folio or a Quarto person? How do you reconcile the two, given your stringency for not editing the “original text”? Or are you that rare bird, the “1603 1Q” purist? Do you only watch Hamlet productions that run the full five hours+ ?
Well, for those of you who slammed me for being suspicious of the production’s “stunt” quality and calling it “star-framing” and accused me of saying so because I don’t like Cumberbatch (while in fact I respect him as an actor, although I don’t think he’s God and I also find him hugely typecast at this point, and that includes Hamlet) – obviously, I wasn’t talking out of my netherparts, was I?
Well, yes, yes, you were.
This isn’t some naive director, she’s experienced, respected and established. She’s also playing with the play’s nuts and bolts, as directors do when a play has be done to death, and making alterations during each preview.
A shallow observation, I know, but I really hope they fill his eyebrows in somehow when he plays Doctor Strange. They are just too sparse, it adds to the Voldemort factor. I mean they don’t need to go full Colin Farrell, but something to balance/support the (presumed) facial hair.
Full Colin Farrell. Lol. He does have some browage, doesn’t he?
What has me worried is that Doctor Strange will supposedly have a goatee and BC can’t grow facial hair to save his life. He’s had some scruff in the past but it’s patchy at best. Most likely he’ll be sporting fake hair for the film along with hair dye. Looks like we’ll be getting Khan 2.0 (scrawnier + stick-on goatee) – Meh. I think I’ll just pass.
I just hope he bulks up because good lord he’s thin at the moment and can only imagine him getting more so as the run goes on.
The play starts with Act III?!?! WTF. Lady, if it ain’t broke, stop trying to fix it. You ain’t no Shakespeare-level genius. Or you’d have written a better play of your own.
+1,000 – that’s the problem with opera and classic theater nowadays: the directors have to fix it or they can’t own it.
Lord, it’s been so long since I’ve seen a man in an actual codpiece from the actual era I could weep . . .
Eh, wonder boy Simon Godwin wrote a brand new scene for the Globe Richard II entirely from scratch, and everyone’s raving about it. Greg Doran frequently heavily edits the texts, and he’s probably the most legendary and respected Shakespearean director working today. When Doran did Hamlet he edited the two primary texts together.
Anyway there’s no such thing as a fixed text to Hamlet, since even if you decided to do the full thing unedited, you still have to choose between the folio or the two quarto editions.
I’m something of a traditionalist myself. I’d perfer the full play, but as that may come in at 4hrs long, I understand sometimes cutting things down a bit for length. Restructuing the whole thing is a bridge too far in my book. The lines (especially THAT line) lose context when you move things around. And there may be audience members who have never seen Hamlet before and will be unfamiliar with the plot.
The play begins with THE most famous soliloquy of the play. They just burned the bridge.
The director is not a hack, she had to have a reason for moving that particular speech to the front, I’m curious to hear her thought process behind trying it. Maybe she’ll discuss on press night?
That being said, I’m glad it moved back to the proper context.
Someone has dubbed the scrum of fans at the stage door (or maybe it was the returns line) the Cumberqueue. I rather like that term. Are the other cast members running the gauntlet too or is it just BC?
I have always been a fan of Branaugh’s version of Hamlet. And I recently saw Olivier’s film version and now Otter King.
One one assesskent I can from all of them, they were too old to play Hamlet, especially Olivier. Seeing it in HD, wow.
This is “Hamlet Pushing 40”
Hahahaha – I love that ‘Hamlet pushing 40’, maybe it should be ‘Hamlet’s mid life crisis’ judging by the look of him.
Why do so few directors understand that Hamlet is meant to be about 18? He’s still at university. And he’s in that weird place of being neither a fully fledged adult nor a child, albeit prince, any more.
It really shits me. I think the Branagh version was magnificent and was very impressed with Bell Shakespeare’s version earlier this year (Australia).
xxxx
I continue to find him extremely attractive, even in the pictures on this post. He looks lean, attractive, and super fit, which are helping him do this play.
I am not bothered by the recent change of construction of the play. I truly believe the previews are were the director tries to fine tune her directorial endeavor.
I do wish I could see the play. Alas, the distant is too far.
I wish Benedict more success to come his way. He is truly adorable, with or without his wife. 🙂