Review Roundup: What Did Critics Think of HAMLET at Chicago Shakespeare?

HAMLET opened at Chicago Shakespeare on April 17 and is running through June 9, 2019.

For the first time in more than twenty years, Artistic Director Barbara Gaines returns to Shakespeare's enduring masterpiece of revenge, passion, and deception. Playing the ill-fated prince of Denmark is Maurice Jones (Broadway's The Lifespan of a Fact opposite Daniel Radcliffe, Romeo and Juliet starring Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad, Julius Caesar with Denzel Washington). Electrifying performances by an outstanding 20-member cast combine with inventive staging to ignite Shakespeare's poetry in CST's uniquely personal Courtyard Theater-making your night out one to remember!

For tickets and more information, please visit https://www.chicagoshakes.com/plays_and_events/hamlet

Let's see what the critics say...

Rachel Weinberg, BroadwayWorld: While Gaines's production is by no means skimpy, the sleek production design puts Shakespeare's language at the forefront, along with Hamlet's deeply personal experience of grief. This makes the production centered quite squarely on its title character, and Jones rises to the challenge. It also means that audiences hoping to hear some of Shakespeare's most iconic passages keenly delivered will find much to admire in this HAMLET.

Catey Sullivan, Chicago Suntimes: Finally, there are Alex Goodrich and Samuel Taylor as Hamlet's friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (respectively). With their entrance, they say a thousand things without uttering a word. You know exactly who these men are merely from watching their body language.

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune: That said, this Gaines "Hamlet" is very much focused on the private lives of the rich and powerful - always an effect when all the the Fortinbras scenes are cut, as is the case here (this show comes in at a crisp 2:45). By her recent standards, this is a simple staging: modern, business-style dress, a mostly neutral scenic environment, a minimum of conceit or clutter. Gaines clearly was so anxious to put the focus on the language and the actors that before Jones starts in on "To be or not to be ...," a soliloquy he delivers in most moving manner, Gaines covers the set with black curtains, leaving Jones alone on the stage with his audience, his sweat and his inky troubles.

Lawrence Bommer, Stage and Cinema: In this very copacetic and propulsive production one omission stands out. Here Hamlet does not tell his treacherous college chums Rosencrantz (Alex Goodrich) and Guildenstern (Samuel Taylor), two very clumsy spies, that he's only pretending to be insane. In C.S.T.'s telling, it seems, no disclaimers are given either to evildoers or the audience.

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