Sydney Reviews

What a piece of work this is.

In Izzard: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Eddie Izzard performs William Shakespeare’s play, solo, creating character and delivering the lines trippingly on the tongue.

On a bare stage, black draped and a faux spotlight upstage centre, as symbolic of theatrical enterprise as the masks of comedy and tragedy, steps forth Eddie Izzard in leather pants, boots and tunic top, proclaiming that if those here present, the audience, if you will, have come to see a comic version of Hamlet they will be quickly disavowed. She is here to perform the play of a disintegrating family in a disintegrating country.

Suiting the action to the word, the word to the action, Izzard proceeds to perform the play, clearly, eloquently, with a controlled energy and command of the script.

With nuanced gait, Polonius pontificates. With sonorous voice, the ghost of Hamlet’s father materialises. Feigning a nuanced fey, Ophelia emerges. And Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are brought to bear, brought bare, as naked hand puppets, a device that speaks volumes. So simple, so adroit.

Adapted by Mak Izzard, Eddie’s sibling, and directed by Selina Cadell, Izzard: The Tragedy of Hamlet luxuriates in the lines, so many now latched to our lexicon, to the modern vernacular, a verbal virus spread by this rich and abundant host.

To Shakespeare’s text be true is the obvious goal here, and writer, director and actor have each scored. In production design, it is pared back, bare back theatre, where the words are worshipped but not enshrined, the lines let loose with loving care, made palpable, a palpable hit of emotion and intellect through precise oratory. Does the play happen in Elsinore or else in the soul of the protagonist?

In some respects, Izzard: The Tragedy of Hamlet, like Hamlet, has elements of a play within a play. It is part of its mastery and allure.