A stage set can make a potent statement, as does Chisato Yoshimi's design for the Second Age company's new production of Hamlet. Entering the theatre, the eye is immediately drawn into a vista of marbled platform with steps, vertical slabs and movable blocks, all planes and rectangles, with the audience seated on three sides. It is a statement of serious intent that this space will soon be filled with something of moment.
And so it proves. For about three hours the great play is given a new lease of vibrant life. At times it is like a compendium of quotations, so familiar and penetrating are the succession of inimitably-phrased truths with which the characters shape their destinies. Done well, it is always thrilling, and this production is rich with the values which have made it the Everest of Shakespeare's immortal works.
That is not to say that it is beyond criticism or comparison. Anthony Kernan's Hamlet, for instance, is not the charismatic prince of many great interpretations; but more, in its general pitch, one of the lads, an ordinary young man thrown in at the deep end. Yet he speaks with clarity and passion, and acts with total conviction, holding the centre for his peers.
There are several quite delicious performers to savour. Mal Whyte is a fine Polonius, pompous and shrewd; Michael Grennell gives us a Claudius of real authority; Robert Price's Laertes is eye-catching; and Jennifer Barry is a persuasive Ophelia, even in the difficult mad scene. Others to note are Angela Harding, Gerard Walsh in a small cameo, Aiden Condron, Jack Walsh, Russell Smith and Ciaran Patrick Reilly, all in harmony.
Joyce Branagh's direction moves it all along with pace and balance. Second Age has a winner here, a show that deserves to be a critical and popular success.
Until December 3rd. To book, phone: 01-4544472