How Hamlet adaptations are having a moment as the play taps into current existential angst
Fresh, vibrant and inclusive, new Hamlet productions are part of a wave of interest in the Shakespearean tragedy seen from stages to TikTok
He is on screen, onstage, on tour, online and in song. Hamlet – William Shakespeare’s masterpiece about a moody Danish prince – seems to be having a moment.
A production by the UK’s National Theatre has landed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York starring Hiran Abeysekera. There is a movie version set in London’s South Asian community starring Riz Ahmed. Anthony Hopkins, at 88, recently delighted fans on TikTok with part of Prince Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy.
The movie Hamnet – a fictionalised story of loss that inspired the creation of Hamlet – earned star Jessie Buckley a best actress Oscar in March. Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia” – Hamlet’s ex – went to No 1 on the Billboard singles chart after its release in October. The Hong Kong International Shakespeare Festival in June will feature productions of Hamlet in Tibetan and Romanian.
Four hundred years on, Hamlet – whose seemingly quite modern anti-hero endlessly mulls over what to do after his uncle murders his father and marries his mother – is still giving.
Jeffrey R. Wilson, a Shakespeare scholar at Harvard University, says Hamlet is perfect for our era in which the crush of bad news triggers constant, existential check-ins.