Review Roundup: HAMLET at Park Avenue Armory; What Did the Critics Think?

From June through August, Park Avenue Armory is presenting the North American premieres of Robert Icke's award-winning modern adaptations of William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Aeschylus' Oresteia, performed in repertory in the grand Wade Thompson Drill Hall.

Hamlet, now open at Park Avenue Armory, is directed and interpreted by the Olivier Award-winning Icke, and features Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game, The Last Duel, The French Dispatch, Black Mirror) as the brooding protagonist.

Let's see what the critics are saying...

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David Cote, The Observer: Critics should review the show they saw, not the one they wanted to see, but one's eyes keep wandering to the large, Andrew Scott-shaped hole at the center of Robert Icke's Hamlet. A slick and thoughtful, if indulgent, reading of Shakespeare's tragedy (running a punitive 3 hours and 40 minutes), the surveillance-state staging offers little you haven't seen across a lifetime viewing Hamlets-yet it withholds the one thing that might've made it special: a commanding turn by the irresistible Scott.

Nicole Serratore, The Stage: Lawther brings out the Danish prince's queasiness, contemplation of mortality and fragility but, while he excels in some smaller moments, it is not a sustained performance. We are often left to wonder what his Hamlet is grasping at. Deeply resonant elements of the original production have also lost some of their power in the transfer.

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