Hamlet

Editorial

When: 6 Feb - 14 March, 2010
Where: La Boite at the Roundhouse Theatre, Brisbane
Bookings: La Boite, www.laboite.com.au or (07) 3007 8600

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

But it's probably not the question which faced director David Berthold when it came to staging a new version of Shakespeare's Hamlet for his first production as Artistic Director of Brisbane's La Boite. Surely what Berthold was thinking was, how to bring new life to a work so classic that its soliloquies are among the most quoted works in the English language?

The tale of the melancholy Danish prince, haunted by his father's ghost and tormented by thoughts of his uncle's infamy and his mother's treachery, has been staged, re-staged and adapted constantly since it was first written by William Shakespeare circa 1601. It has influenced writers as diverse as Charles Dickens and Tom Stoppard and been performed by some of the best actors of the ages, from Richard Burbage to Mel Gibson.

For Berthold's new production, one of Australia's most exciting young actors, Toby Schmitz, makes his Queensland mainstage debut as the Prince of Denmark. He leads a top-shelf ensemble cast that includes Matilda Award winners Helen Howard as Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude, and Eugene Gilfedder as the treacherous King Claudius.

"It really is a play that has it all: a spooky ghost story cut through with love and jealousy, guns and grief, madness and music, and university students and parents thrashing out a path through the mess of it all," says Berthold. "As Hamlet, Toby is gobsmackingly good and regularly floors us. Like the play, he has it all. He's smart and sexy, funny, and completely disarming."

Richard Watts, Citysearch