from Buxton Festival Fringe, 2005
A one man Hamlet is a brave and intelligent thing to try.
The incorporeal characters are ambiguous – do they exist invisible to us or are they the creations of Hamlet’s mental torment? And it is this torment that is so forcefully embodied by this rendition of the play. The focus is entirely on Hamlet. We see events through his eyes, we learn of them as he does. The audience is not privy to the events that happen “off-stage”. We know what Hamlet knows and learn as he does of the developing tragedy. There is a stronger sense of his madness than will ever be possible in the complete play.
But this is a complete play; faithful to Shakespeare and intensified by the immediacy of the audience’s relation to Hamlet. The bravery lies in one man being all with no support or reaction from the rest of the cast. The actor must more truly become Hamlet than in any conventional production. Your reviewer’s thoughts strayed to the possibilities of a One Man Macbeth or Lear? A complement to “Lear’s Daughters” perhaps, also on the Fringe this year.
The work was created by Andrew Cowie in 1990 and has seen many Fringes including Edinburgh and Adelaide where it won a Festival Fringe First. Will, an Australian himself, has performed it in Berlin recently and honours Buxton with a fine performance. For those familiar with the play this work will ask new questions and bring new insights. It is a play to provoke thought which is one of the things a Fringe is for!
John Wilson, Buxton Festival Fringe 2005 (Read this review online at http://www.buxtonfringe.org.uk/reviews2005dra.html)
from Fringe Festival Praha, 2006
It is clear from the opening moments of ‘A One Man Hamlet’ that Will Bligh is one hell of an actor. As he takes the stage and begins Andrew Cowie’s adaptation of the Bard’s most famous play, we see in him the intensity to carry it through to the end. The production is lucky to have him, because the rest of it can’t live up to Bligh’s work. The adaptation is effective but loses all flow and grace in the final moments, right about the time we should be fully engaged. The music and sound effects are wooden and poorly chosen. The production is, by the end, more of a showcase for Bligh than an effective attempt at portraying the world of Elsinore entirely through Hamlet’s eyes. However, worth seeing for a brilliant take on ‘what a piece of work is man’ speech.
Liam Billingham, BLATT (Bohemian’s Review on Art, Lit and Ideas) Prague (Reviewed for festival; http://www.praguefringe.com for more)
from New York International Fringe Festival, 2006
If you think tackling the role of Hamlet is a daunting task for an actor, try tackling it as a one-man show. Which is what Australian actor Will Bligh does in A One Man Hamlet, presented by Haus Der Farben Productions.
Adapted by Andrew Cowie, this 70-minute version of one of—if not the—most produced Shakespeare play (I’ve seen more than half a dozen productions myself) offers us Bligh in the role of the Prince of Denmark, along with his “ghost” father and a couple of the Players in the play-within-a play. Making it a one man show-within-a one man show!
On a stage with nothing but a small black trunk, Bligh appears in a simple white dress shirt, black pants, and black shoes. A twelve-inch dagger at his side, he removes from the trunk a variety of props he will use to tell the story of a young man, “commanded by the ghost of his father to murder his uncle.”
Citing the First Quarto, the Second Quarto and the Folio as its source material, Cowie’s adaptation not only features Hamlet’s famous “soliloquies,” it includes scenes from the rest of the play. Bligh and director Lauren Pfitzer have shaped his performance so that it happens in one of three ways: either to internalize (during soliloquies like “To be or not to be”) or to address the audience (which is when Bligh is at his best; I kid you not, when Hamlet says, “Good friends…Never make known what you have seen tonight…Nay, but swear’t, ” I wanted to stand up and do it!) or to talk to imaginary characters he places on the stage with him (Hamlet’s love, Ophelia; Hamlet’s Queen mother, Gertrude; the Players to whom Hamlet gives his famous “advice.”)
Again, when Bligh engages the audience—daring to look us directly in the eye—is when he rocks as Hamlet. It’s when I was most routing for him to kill that (literal) mother-f***er of an Uncle of his! But when he excluded us—posing questions only to himself—that’s when he lost me. (If the eyes are the windows of the soul, when I could see into Bligh’s soul is when I truly cared for him.)
A totally engaging moment occurs in A One Man Hamlet—thanks to the lighting design of Shane Stevens. A simple pool indicates the arrival of the “ghost.” Which Bligh steps into—as if being pulled by the unseen force—actually becoming the ghost of Hamlet’s murdered father (and also showing his diversity as a performer).
I do commend Will Bligh for daring to tackle such a feat. I also encourage him to play each and every moment with the kind of strength he does when he’s at his best—including his audience.
Frank Anthony Polito, nytheatre.com (Read this review online at http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/archshow.php?key=580)