Sometimes as a theatre critic the hardest reviews to write are for the shows I have a simple response with. While there are certainly times I walk away from a production with a nuanced and complicated opinion on after seeing it other times I simply like or don’t like what I see on stage. This is magnified even more so when it is a classic play where the director doesn’t need to mess things up- just do the great work because it is in fact, great. This is how I felt coming out of Hamlet at The Utah Shakespeare Festival. Hamlet is one of the greatest plays ever written in the English language and this is a good version of Hamlet with an outstanding lead performance at the helm. Sometimes that’s all that is needed for a good night at the theatre and that’s what we get here.

The biggest point of praise for this production lies at the feet of our leading man Walter Kmiec playing Hamlet. He is honestly one of the finest classical actors I’ve ever seen on stage, and I’ve felt so each year I’ve seen him at the festival going back to his turn as Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing in 2024. I liked that performance and production so much I saw it twice- two days in a row. Whether comedy or drama (he played Macbeth last year excellently) Kmiec makes it easy to immerse yourself into the character and story. Here as Hamlet, he lets the madness inside the character grow slowly until he is completely unhinged by the ending. We also see the despair when he see’s them burying Ophelia and is ready to give himself up to Laertes which makes his famous soliloquy ‘to be or not to be’ all the more powerful (also it is moved to before the final battle, which is an interesting choice as I kept waiting in suspense for it.) We’ve seen him in despair so his contemplation of suicide feels real and with a little bit of madness in Kmiec’s performance quite possible.

This production of Hamlet is directed by Beth Lopes and like I said she makes the wise decision to keep things simple with a relatively barebones set and visual effects mostly kept to the scenes with the ghosts, which are quite effective especially with Kmiec’s chilling reaction to said ghosts (scenic design by Mark Weaver, lighting Michael Gilliam.) We also get more ghosts than I typically see in Hamlet, which is a fun touch. In addition, the fight choreography by Caitlyn Herzlinger deserves a shoutout. All of these elements keep a more traditional staging of Hamlet from feeling stodgy or boring. Quite the opposite in fact.

My only main critique of this play is some of the casting I found to be distracting. There seemed to be no care for family members looking like believable family, which I guess is fine but does impact my immersion a little bit. But the main problem was with Kayland Jordan as Horatio. I’m often not opposed to gender swapping roles but making this dear friend a female is distracting for Hamlet and his story. There are times where they embrace quite intimately and talk about their friendship and are we supposed to feel this is any kind of conflict with Hamlet and Ophelia? I don’t see what having Horatio be a woman adds to the story, so it only distracts and weakens his complete bond with Ophelia making the audience question where his love lies unnecessarily.

Lopes and her team also highlight the lighter moments more than in other productions of Hamlet I’ve seen. Scenes like the gravediggers opining about life are a lot of fun to watch. Students and young people will enjoy this production and not get too antsy watching it. I recommend it if only for Kmiec’s performance alone. Fortunately there’s a lot of time left to get your tickets as it is playing at the Utah Shakespeare Festival through September 4th. Tickets can be purchased here.

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s 22nd play written in between 2 comedies Twelfth Night and The Merry Wives of Windsor around 1600 although there is some debate amongst scholars about the actual date of the first production. It is widely considered to be the greatest play ever written in the English language.

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