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Too Too Solid: Eddie Izzard’s Hamlet
The British comedian, so deft on a standup stage, has a go at Shakespeare—and tightens up.
Perhaps the fact that Hamlet begins with several characters on edge in the dark isn’t serving her, but narrative content aside, there’s still a whiff of actorly tension in the air, almost as if Izzard feels she needs to prove that she can keep a straight and solemn face. Tyler Elich’s lights keep the audience conventionally in the dark, and Eliza Thompson’s original music—a dismal blend of low strings and horns that comes off as royalty-free “medieval”—gives us the feeling of listening to a live book-on-tape rather than engaging in a full theatrical event. Less familiar words are regularly replaced with modern synonyms, and though the intention is honorable (Izzard has spoken of wanting the show to be accessible to “the people who don’t find Shakespeare easy, like I didn’t when I was a dyslexic kid”), the substitutions clank and clunk.
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