Hamlet (The Public Theater) (2023)

In 2019, Kenny Leon staged a brilliant production of Much Ado About Nothing in the park. This year, he returns to the Delacorte (for one final season before it closes for 18 months of renovations) with Hamlet. Though the plays have nothing to do with each other, he stages it in the same affluent black suburb of alternate Atlanta, one in which Stacey Abrams ran for president in 2020. But this time, the Abrams banner is broken, the palatial estate is crooked, the American flag is at an angle, the car in a puddle, and at center stage a casket draped in an American flag. The set and costumes are fabulous. The Queen Gertrude is dressed in African regalia.  Like in "Much Ado", the cast is predominantly black and they infuse the play with hip-hop and gospel music. 

Ato Blankson-Wood is very good as the eponymous Hamlet. His "To Be or Not To Be" was breathtaking. I don't feel like he really got across though that he was faking insanity. The production definitely suggests that he's actually gone mad following the murder of his father. The father's ghost appears as an ominous voice who possesses Hamlet, and there are some spooky lights. In this way, Hamlet is portrayed as more of an anti-hero. But I remembered Hamlet being more justified in his anger. 

Shakespeare's longest play, Hamlet usually runs more than 4 hours but this production is an abbreviated 2 hours 45 minutes. There are subplots removed which has the effect of accelerating the main plot. It makes the pacing kind of weird. And by the time everyone dies at the end, it feels sort of unearned. In conclusion, not as good as Much Ado About Nothing, but maybe I also am just not a big fan of the tragedies.