Eddie Izzard brings a spare, solo "Hamlet" to ACT's Strand Theater

CBS News

08-04-2025

"Use all gently," advises Hamlet to the Player King in Act 3 Scene 2 of Shakespeare's famed tragedy.
"For in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion," he continues, "you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness."
Good advice for actors indeed, and one that popular British film and stage actor and comedian Eddie Izzard perhaps took to heart in preparing her solo performance of a somewhat trimmed version of the play.
Adapted by Mark Izzard and directed by Selina Cadell, this "Hamlet," onstage at American Conservatory Theater's Strand Theater, takes place within a rather claustrophobic enclosure that is beautifully lit (by Tyler Elich) to conjure various moods.
Izzard paces and stomps about the restricted space in black tights and heavy black boots, bare-headed, with long, red fingernails and deep red lipstick, moving from here to there as she switches from character to character and from scene to scene.
Eliza Thompson's varied and thrilling musical score, combined with those exquisite lights--especially chilling when the ghost of Hamlet's father appears--takes the place of sets, props, stage movement and physical action (other than a mimed sword fight toward the play's end). Hamlet doesn't even end up on the floor when he's dead.
Izzard is known and loved for comic roles, but "Hamlet" is of course no comedy. When Hamlet's spectral father appears, early on, to order the young prince to avenge his death--explaining that it was his brother, Claudius, who poisoned him and then all too quickly married the widowed queen--Hamlet must prepare himself for the grisly task.
And but for a few comical touches--Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are a pair of animated hands; the obsequious duo played as babbling puppets, an amusing touch--thankfully Izzard, on opening night, in no way played to a crowd of fans who seemed to think this "Hamlet" was a laugh riot.
But if Izzard is not consciously following the wise advice to the Player King, she has not found a way to internalize, well, anything: not Ophelia's broken heart and descent into madness, nor Queen Gertrude's confusion and horror, nor King Claudius' wrenching confession, nor, most egregiously, Prince Hamlet's existential angst, inner conflict and rage.
Rather, Izzard seems to be racing through the text, at times as though she were reading lines, rarely changing voices (Claudius' is slightly lower-pitched, Gertrude's slightly higher pitched and the Gravedigger sounds Cockney, but that's about it); almost never changing physical forms of expression (Polonius has a limp); and awkwardly switching places to enact a conversation between two or more characters.
This is a stark, low-tech production, and, as such, should work quite well. Just as Hamlet warns the Player King not to "tear a passion to tatters," so is Izzard careful to fit the action, ever so modestly, to the words--but at a steep price. If only she would take the time, and make the commitment, to connect on a deeper, more personal level to the principal characters.
And couldn't we have had maybe just one sword?
Eddie Izzard's "Hamlet" runs through April 20 at American Conservatory Theater's Strand Theater, 1127 Market St., San Francisco. Tickets are $77.50-$127 at
act-sf.org
.