Camdne New Journal - Theatre: Hamlet

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The Review - THEATRE by TOM FOOT
Published: 9 August 2007

Prince in a hurry

HAMLET
Etcetera Theatre

SIX young women in white corsets and faces painted pale filed on to the Etcetera stage on a balmy mid-summer evening.
If only the men in white coats were waiting for them outside.
Absurdist drama troupe Get Over It! have condensed Hamlet, Shakespeare’s five-hour epic, into an anarchic 20 minutes.
I fear this latest act of Bardicide may upset the purists.
One baby in the audience, clearly used to more traditional productions, burst into tears.
I take exception to that. The play’s cavernous profundity was well served!
The performance of Sonia Kamel, as Hamlet, surely struck closer to the heart of the the Dane’s freakish lunacy than any other.
All the major scenes are touched upon, if with some minor alterations. Yorick’s skull is pulled from the crotch of the Gravedigger (Telma Rocha) and Hamlet kills himself at the end. “And all the rest is silence,” cried the grief-stricken Kamel.
But more was waiting for the audience as chants for an encore were taken literally and the show was performed all over again – this time in double speed.
A special mention must go to Ezra Spearpoint who, with the confident Ciara Aaron, performed a finely-tuned pre-show boy-band dance routine. He revelled in his moves and, even while sitting idly at the keyboard, was barely able to supress his extended smile.
Fame and glory awaits.
Until Aug 10
020 7482 4857

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