Hamlet – Maxine Peake (DVD Review)

Starring: Maxine Peake, John Shrapnel, Barbara Marten, Gillian Bevan, Thomas Arnold
Director: Sarah Frankcom, Margaret Williams
Running Time: 184 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: September 14th 2015 (UK)

Taking a classic play and swapping the traditional genders is always in danger of looking a little gimmicky. There were certainly a few who thought that would be true when it was announced that Maxine Peake would be taking on the role of Hamlet in a new stage production. It’s not the first time it’s happened (Sarah Berhardht famously took on the role in 1899), but it’s certainly not common.

Peake’s performance was filmed live in Manchester and beamed live to cinemas, and now that’s been brought to DVD.

Peake isn’t the only character where the person playing the role isn’t the traditional gender, with Polonius becoming a woman (Polonia), as does Rosencrantz. Interestingly though, while Polonius becomes very definitely a female character, Peake’s character retains the play’s male pronouns but it’s played in a way that is neither specifically male nor female. It’s not agender either, instead being somewhere beyond gender, with Peake bringing out both the masculine and feminine of a character that is perhaps one of the greatest explorations of humanity ever written.

What’s perhaps most surprising is how little it changes the play, to the point where some less enlightened viewers may be left wondering, ‘Why did they bother?’ However, that’s almost the reason to bother, as it shows how the character of Hamlet isn’t about gender or being a man, it is about being human, with the ennui, frustration, uncertainty, indecision and melancholy that entails. Peake is slightly mixed in the role, with her raging, angry Hamlet sometimes feeling as if it’s close to being one-note and with the volume left on too high. That said, during her quieter moments she can be quite inspired, including the best ‘All poor Yorrick’ scene that I’ve ever seen.

I wasn’t sure about her madness though – or at least her character’s madness. Actors usually choose whether Hamlet’s insanity is real or feigned, but Peake often seems uncertain, hoping that the words alone will take care of it. It’s not completely her fault , as the play itself never resolves this, with Hamlet sometimes seeming totally rational while playing at madness and other times as if he really has had a complete mental breakdown and only thinks he’s still in control of his own mind. Normally though it’s played one way or the other. Ocassionally Peake’s on the verge of something brilliant, where it feels that she is sane, but that the stress of her situation is in imminent danger of pushing her completely over the edge. That only comes through in fits and starts, but when it does it’s rather thrilling.

As for the production outside Peake, to be honest it’s a tad uninspired. At times there’s a hint of student production about it, where it has lots of ideas but never quite works out whether they fit with the play, or with one another. It also does the common trick of removing most of the political machinations of the play, such as a foreign prince marching across Denmark to go to war with another nation. Sometimes that works, but here, perhaps because the in-the-round staging makes the whole thing rather constrained, it makes the play feel more soap opera pot-boiler than it usually does. I think the issue is that while it’s good, it doesn’t fully get to grips with the complexities and contradictions of the play (although it oddly does a good job of illuminating these problematic aspects of the play, even if that’s not its intention) or find a fully cohesive way to completely bring it to life.

That said, I would recommend it as a good version to use in schools for youngsters learning about the play, as for those interested in seeing the basics of Hamlet done pretty well and in an accessible way, it’s a good production, but if you’re wanting something more nuanced that will stretch your ideas about Hamlet, it’s not so great.

That may seem odd to say for a production where the gender variance would seem almost by its nature that it would make you reconsider the play, but beyond making you realise Hamlet being a man isn’t as important as you might have thought, it’s not particularly revelatory.

Special Features: Peake is good and shows that Hamlet is a character that is beyond gender, exploring universal humanity in a truly profound way. However, she sometimes seems to have only 90% decided what to do while the character, while the production around her is okay but not particularly inspired.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac