The anticipation was palpable in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall: the Tiger Lillies were returning to the stage, this time providing the music to a version ofHamlet produced by the Copenhagen-based Republique Theatre Company. Being a long-time fan of their music, my hopes were high for this production, and to anyone who is used to watching standard adaptations of Shakespeare it would have been an eye-opening spectacle. Even for the more theatrically experienced, in fact, it provides moments of breathtaking stagecraft, but there is something about the way it is all put together that holds it back from being the full and rounded theatrical experience that I so wanted it to be.
The opening makes many promises that the show struggles to keep. After an introduction from Martin Jacques, the always compelling front-man of the Tiger Lillies, the curtain rises on a banquet scene, but we see it from a bird’s-eye view. The performers are gathered around a table turned on its side, all of them apparently sitting at an angle parallel to the floor, whilst bassist Adrian Stout hovers above them on a wire like a grotesque cherub.
This is one of a handful of moments that produced an audible gasp from the audience, and an example of the blinding brilliance that pops up from time to time. Ophelia’s drowning is another. Using wires to walk up the wall Nanna Finding Koppel performs an elegant and beautiful scene in the air against a projected backdrop of water, whilst Jacques’s heart piercing falsetto underscores. The effect is electric.
But it is the storytelling that holds the piece back. Director Martin Tulinius has opted for an acting style that varies from pretty standard Shakespearean delivery to grotesque surrealism. The actors were prone to performing suddenly in slow motion or to unexpected bouts of screaming. They also didn’t have enough time to connect with each other or to develop in themselves, as the story was stripped down to only its essential components. This might have been OK if the role of the Tiger Lillies was to push the story forward. But many of the songs were merely reflective, focusing on a single theme such as madness or murder, and were seldom used to help the audience understand what was going on. It felt as if a pre-existing knowledge of Hamlet was expected from the crowd – perhaps unavoidable with such a famous play, but not necessarily right. The piece was a little inaccessible as a result.
By the second half, the presence of the Tiger Lillies began to weigh the piece down as everything stopped while they performed a song. It began to feel like the music and the action were working against each other as a pattern emerged of dialogue followed by song.
Perhaps most disappointingly, apart from a few exceptions, the music was standard for the Tiger Lillies. Exactly what you would expect them to produce. It lacked any surprises or sparkles of magic that may have elevated the piece.
I feel troubled by this show: I enjoyed it, the whole audience seemed to enjoy it, but, perhaps because of my high hopes, it seemed not to fulfil itself. The components were all very good – the moving set that toppled down onto the stage, the beautiful wire work, the haunting underscore – and when they all came together it produced an awe-inspiring theatrical symphony unlike anything else I’ve seen. But when they didn’t work together the play felt limp; the parts that shone did so so brightly that they made the dull parts stick out all the more.
When the heavily understated ending was done (in which, inexplicably, we didn’t clearly see Hamlet enact his revenge on his uncle) and sections of the audience stood in ovation, I was left only with a quiet disappointment at how brilliant it all might have been.