Join the critically-acclaimed Pantaloons Theatre Company as they put on a frantic disposition to tackle Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy in their own anarchic style.
When he discovers that his uncle has murdered his father, married his mother and traitorously taken the crown of Denmark there’s only one course of action for Hamlet: feign madness, frequently monologue and take swift revenge. But outrageous fortune has other plans for the poor Prince of Denmark…
With live music, audience interaction, brevity-boosting abridgements, comic turns and tragic twists there’s only one question: To be there, or to be square?
The Pantaloons return to the Roman Theatre for their 5th year, after delighting audiences with The Importance of Being Earnest and Robin Hood last summer.
Ahead of the run we caught up with Stephen Purcell, Co-Artistic Director of The Pantaloons.
What can you tell me about this production of Hamlet?
This is a playful adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy that puts Hamlet’s relationship with the audience at its centre. I’ve cast two actors in the title role – one male, one female – and they will alternate from night to night. While they are playing Hamlet in completely different ways, they’ve been through the same process of thinking about what he wants from scene to scene, and what he might do to get it. Both actors are great at interacting with the audience, engaging them in Hamlet’s dilemma. There are four actors in the cast in total, and those who aren’t playing Hamlet play multiple roles each. This gives the production the feel of an act of collective storytelling, inviting the audience to contribute their own “imaginary forces” to make the world of the play come alive.
What can you tell me about this production of Hamlet?
This is a playful adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy that puts Hamlet’s relationship with the audience at its centre. I’ve cast two actors in the title role – one male, one female – and they will alternate from night to night. While they are playing Hamlet in completely different ways, they’ve been through the same process of thinking about what he wants from scene to scene, and what he might do to get it. Both actors are great at interacting with the audience, engaging them in Hamlet’s dilemma. There are four actors in the cast in total, and those who aren’t playing Hamlet play multiple roles each. This gives the production the feel of an act of collective storytelling, inviting the audience to contribute their own “imaginary forces” to make the world of the play come alive.
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| Stephen Purcell |
Where did the inspiration for your staging of Hamlet come from?
Every Shakespeare production we do with The Pantaloons faces the same set of challenges: how can we adapt it so that it’s playable by a cast of four or five (usually four), and all set, costume and props can fit into a single van? But rather than being frustrating, these practical constraints are actually a spur for creative decision-making. This is a heavily abridged version of the play, less than half the length of the full text. I’ve edited it to focus on the family drama at the heart of the play. The set is really simple, just six wooden blocks of various sizes that get rearranged to make different stage pictures. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to distil the story into vivid images: how different combinations of the blocks, a few props, and the bodies of the actors can tell the story in a concise, meaningful and engaging way.
How would you describe the work of The Pantaloons?
We do all sorts of different texts – classic plays by the likes of Shakespeare and Wilde, adaptations of novels by authors like Austen and Dickens, and new plays based on myths and legends like Robin Hood. The thing that links them all is the sense of playfulness I’ve talked about – we like to say that we keep “one foot constantly in the world of the here-and-now while the other remains within the world of illusion”. The audience is always in on the game of telling the story and putting on the show.
How do you reflect on the journey with The Pantaloons since the company began in 2004?
It’s been quite a journey! When we started, it was just a one-off project at the University of Kent, where the founding members of the company were all students. A core team emerged who enjoyed working together and we spent the next three or four years taking annual Shakespeare productions to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where we’d perform for donations in the Royal Botanic Garden. I think we really honed our craft there, because if we didn’t find compelling and engaging ways to tell the story, the audience could just walk away without paying! Then we gradually worked our way towards being a fully professional touring company. We recruited a lot of new actors along the way, many of whom have since become key members of the ensemble, and huge influences on our company style.
How does this staging of Hamlet fit in with the ethos of The Pantaloons?
A few people raised their eyebrows when we said we were doing Hamlet: they'd say, “it’s not exactly laugh-a-minute, is it?”. But actually, the play fits really well with our ethos. Hamlet is constantly talking to the audience – more, I think, than any character does in Shakespeare’s comedies. Sure, it’s not always funny, but there’s a lot of humour and playfulness there – he includes the audience in his plans, and functions as a kind of joker or jester through the middle section of the play, deliberately messing with characters like Polonius, Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I’ve encouraged the actors playing Hamlet to find as much playfulness as they can in those relationships with the audience and the other characters.
How do you blend the styles and themes within the play to include live music, audience interaction, comedy and more?
We always include live music whenever we can – this production opens and closes with a lighthearted song that sets the playful tone we’re going for. Audience interaction isn’t something you have to shoehorn into Hamlet – when actors and audience are sharing the daylight together, it’s right there every time a character does a soliloquy (which is frequently in this play!). We’ve also found a few opportunities to involve the audience in the storytelling in other ways – by casting them as members of Claudius’s court, for example. And as for comedy, we’ve added a few of our own jokes to the Gravedigger scene, but really, the humour is already there in the play, if you look for it.
What is the preparation period like for an outdoor production?
We can’t afford a lengthy rehearsal process, so we put most of our shows together in three weeks. Thanks to some generous funding from the University of Warwick, we were able to spend an extra week workshopping the play this year, which was hugely helpful and meant we had a bit more space to explore different possibilities. With two actors alternating as Hamlet, the extra time was much needed!
You’ve enjoyed a long connection to Shakespeare and his work. What is it about his work in particular that draws you in?
Shakespeare’s such a brilliant storyteller, and he weaves together the most amazing poetry with down-to-earth humour. We tend to think of his plays as dividing neatly into Comedies, Tragedies and Histories, because that’s how they are listed in the First Folio, but actually, he constantly blurs the boundaries between those genres. All the comedies have troubling undercurrents and bittersweet notes; all the tragedies have moments of levity and humour. And some plays, like Troilus and Cressida or The Winter’s Tale, defy generic classification altogether.
If you were able to ask Shakespeare a question about the play, what would you like to ask him?
I’d love to know what he liked and disliked about the two different versions of the play that were published during his lifetime. The earliest text we have is often thought to be “bad” – i.e. not Shakespeare’s preferred version – but it contains a brilliant scene near the end where Horatio tells Gertrude that her husband is plotting to kill her son, which casts a completely different light on her actions in the final scene. We’ve included that scene in our edit, because I think it’s wonderful, and much more dramatic than the equivalent scene in the more “authoritative” texts, where Horatio simply reads Hamlet’s letter aloud to the audience. The second edition of the play is much closer to the version that would go on to be published in the First Folio in 1623, so it has a greater claim to Shakespearean authority, but even there, there’s an important speech that doesn’t appear in any of the other texts – Hamlet’s last soliloquy, beginning “How all occasions do inform against me”, where he finally decides to take his revenge on his uncle. Did Shakespeare cut it because he thought it wasn’t necessary, or did he add it in because he felt it was needed? We just don’t know, and I’d love to know the answer to that.
What was the first piece of theatre you saw that had a big impact on you?
I used to love going to the pantomime as a child, and I’ve never lost that love of big stories, live music, playful acting and audience interaction. As a young adult, I saw a lot of productions at Shakespeare’s Globe, and I was totally awestruck by the way actors like Mark Rylance could achieve similar effects in classical plays, and harness that energy to intensify the tragedy as well as the comedy.
What keeps you inspired?
Imaginative people. Or rather, anyone who shares their imagination with others. Audiences, actors, my students, writers, musicians, artists. My kids!
What do you hope an audience member takes away from seeing Hamlet?
I hope they feel engaged in the storytelling! I’m not the kind of director who wants his audiences to all come away thinking or feeling the same way about the play and its characters – I hope they all come away with their own thoughts, feelings and ideas.
Where can readers see the show?
The show will then tour throughout the UK until October 2025 for dates and venues see https://thepantaloons.co.uk/hamlet/
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