| What: Shakespeare’s Hamlet When: May 9 -17, 2025 Where: The Masque, 37 Main Rd, Muizenberg, Cape Town Direction and adaption: Yuri Behari-Leak Cast: Includes Hanna Todd, Gavin Werner, Michele Belknap, Leila Sasman, Ethan Andrew Wilton, Kim R2 and Jana Botha Bookings: Quicket Special block booking rates for high schools: e-mail admin@themasque.co.za Masque box office: Open Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays between 9am and 2pm Good to know: Secure parking, wheelchair access and facilities available. Back-up generator so the show will go on, even when there is load shedding |
I never thought of Hamlet as entertaining but the Masque’s production is entertaining and it also packs pertinent punches around GBV, revenge, justice, female empowerment and grief – personal and societal. The cast looks like it is enjoying performing and that energy comes across so yes, it is deep and poignant but not heavy. The gender swapped production is set in the film industry. Hamlet is a film director. Conceptually, it is clever and beyond the ‘concept’ it works theatrically, as an enthralling and thrilling story, reverberating vividly in terms of the film industry, fame, celebrity, validation, patriarchy, the casting couch and the Me Too movement.
Hannah Todd as Hamlet is a tour de force. Todd (23) graduated from the Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies at UCT, last year. This is her first production, post her degree. Impressive performance. Her articulation is clear, with every word heard. She brings emotional and visceral gravitas to her Hamlet who is navigating her way in the film industry. She had us in her thrall, when she uttered Hamlet’s stirring soliloquy, What a piece of work is a man when Hamlet speaks to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II. Hamlet is flummoxed about the world and humankind. The positioning of the narrative with a female Hamlet and female Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, heightens the despair inherent in the Bard’s words. They are women at their wits end.
The adaptation and direction is by Yuri Behari-Leak. As a lawyer, film maker and actor, he has brought so many strands to this innovative conceptual production, rooted in landscape obsessing with fame and image. And within that, where is the justice and morality? As Behari-Leak notes in an interview with TheCapeRobyn: “Hamlet’s indecisiveness in the original text thus takes on a broader meaning – it is not just about one character’s individual struggle, but also about how the film industry and society at large should respond to systemic GBV.” Hamlet grapples “with whether she should embrace a patriarchal path of retributive justice, violence and death, or a more feminist path of restorative justice that could lead to wider and longer-lasting institutional, systemic and societal change.”
The swapping the genders of all the protagonists – except two (Claudius and Gertrude) – shifts the tragedy – on so many levels. Behari-Leak: “Through having Laertes and Polonius as women, we comment on how, in male-dominated settings like the film industry, the patriarchy pits women against each other, and how women can also be complicit in systems of patriarchy and gender-based violence through masculinising themselves to survive in such settings. Retaining Gertrude’s original gender as a woman enables exploration into the dichotomy of ‘victim/survivor’ in the context of GBV. Having Ophelio as a man also allows commentary on the ‘Hollywood heartthrob’ archetype and its relationship to fame, celebrity, and external validation.” Read the interview here: https://thecaperobyn.co.za/interview-yuri-behari-leak-talks-about-his-gender-swapped-adaptation-of-hamlet-set-in-the-film-industry/
Behari-Leak has stayed true to the Bard’s language but in order to make this narrative work, he has added in his own writing. It would be a pity if this is a once-off. I hope that the script will be available as a play script. The staging is striking and contemporary. It could be set anywhere. Scenic changes include glitzy film premiere, casting couch and boardroom. Bravo to Savannah Steyn for her set design which has a millennial zing in terms of interiors and aspirational living. Costumes by Nicky Enticott are fab – the power suited Hamlet in her platform shoes and the glam glitzy frocks at the film premiere.
Great to see veteran actors Michele Belknap (Polonius) and Gavin Werner (Claudius) on stage again. Werner evokes a sleazy Harvey Weinstein type dude. Kim R2 and Jana Botha are delicious in their portrayal of Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. They cracked us up. Ethan Andrew Wilton (Ophelio) who I last saw in a panto at the Masque continues to astound me with his versatility and physically charged performance.
I loved this Hamlet. I urge people to see this production – and take young people along – to get them excited about the Bard. It is a very manageable two hours (including interval).
❇ Featured image: Leila Sasman (Getrude), Hanna Todd (Hamlet) and Michele Belknap (Pelonius) in Hamlet, directed and adapted by Yuri Behari-Leak, at The Masque, May 9 -17, 2025. Pic: Supplied. Image supplied,
