Kenny's Reviews > Hamlet

“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
Hamlet ~~ William Shakespeare


Richard Burton

I recently discovered that my non-existent Hamlet review has 51 likes. With that many likes, I figured I better buckle down and write a proper review for this amazing piece of theatre.

It's no wonder William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is so famous and beloved. Hamlet provides all the ingredients of a thrilling plot, while offering some of literature’s most breathtaking poetry and philosophical reflection. In Shakespeare’s paranoid Denmark, young love is throttled by fear, and friends are driven to become enemies, while a melancholic, young prince rages against a scheming uncle who married his mother after having killed his brother, King Hamlet.


John Gielgud

The story of Prince Hamlet, robbed of his father and of his rightful seat on the throne of Denmark, Hamlet has, over the years, became one of theatre’s most thrilling dramas. The love and betrayal coincide in this story to make one of the most shocking endings of Shakespeare’s work ever.

Madness, revenge, mortality, lust, and religion are words that can describe Hamlet. Not the play Hamlet, but Prince Hamlet, the boy. The only word that is needed to describe Hamlet, the play, is tragedy.

Hamlet is not a difficult read, being that we are so familiar with the text; if you look past the words on the paper and see the meaning of Hamlet you may find that the young prince Hamlet isn’t so different from you and me.

The story of a prince robbed of his father and of his rightful crown as king of Denmark, Hamlet has, over the years, became one of the most exciting tragedies ever written. Love and betrayal coincide in this story to make one of the most shocking endings of Shakespeare’s work ever.


John Barrymore

Prince Hamlet’s father, King Hamlet of Denmark, is dead. The king’s brother, Claudius, has attained the throne and married widowed Queen Gertrude — all done with such tasteless haste that the funeral bak’d meats did coldly furnish forth the wedding tables. On top of all the sneaky corruption, Denmark is under threat of invasion from Norway. But as everything seems to be falling out of place for the young prince of Denmark, he seems to have struck gold of the sorts.

The dead king rests uncomfortably and one night appears to Prince Hamlet on the castle walls. As young Hamlet receives the message, to set out revenge of the death of his father, the castle stirs after Hamlet’s remarks to seeing the spirit.

In order to complete the quest Prince Hamlet undertakes for his father, he must make himself seem mad, but is he truly mad? This is the one questions that actors, directors and critics have debated for centuries. The only person who truly answer that question died in 1616. Shakespeare has left this question open; Hamlet may well be mad, he may be playing on the fact that others read his actions that way to be able to better ready his revenge.

There is also a great deal of ambiguity about his mother’s views. She seems to allow that she is very naïve and doesn’t really know what’s going on, yet one gets the strong textual clues that she knows quite well what her new husband has done, and she’s trying very hard to not know.

In the end the entire mess comes crashing down in tragic deaths of nearly everyone.


Sarah Bernhardt

Hamlet , in addition to being gripping from the first line to the last line, is also just filled with famous lines and speeches, slices of Shakespeare’s writing that are so worthy of the fame they have achieved from the most famous “To be of not to be” speech to one-liners of great significance.

For centuries, Hamlet has been the theatre's cornerstone of the diversion of madness and revenge, and when these two are mixed, they create something much bigger than all of us. But what is Hamlet’s true nature? Does Hamlet know his own nature? As a director, I see a hero caught up in a villainous situation ~~ a young man of full of anger, filled mourning, who has no idea how to proceed in his corrupt world. Therefore, this is why we can all relate to Hamlet, as we are all stuck in a corrupt world with no idea how to proceed.


Benedict Cumberbatch