In ‘Hamlet Hail to the Thief,’ Radiohead Riffs on Shakespeare

Radiohead meets the bard: a mixture for the ages and the kryptonite for the purists, one might think. But a new version of “Hamlet”, with a band 2003, “Hail To The Thief”, which opened in Manchester, England, Wednesday, is not a simple trick.

There is much in the album, both aesthetically and thematically, which resonates with the history of usurpation, revenge and doubts of Shakespeare: the allusion of the title to political infamy, the gloomy bell of music, the anxious. Immediately, the album’s opening line: “Are you a dreamer / to put the world in rights?” – He has echoes of Hamlet’s famous speech, “Time is out of the articulation, oh cursed to resentment / I was born to fix it!”

“Hamlet has gone to The Thief” -co directed by Christine Jones and Steve Hogget for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and co-created by Radiohead’s leader Thom Yorke-Runs in Aviva Studios until May 18 before transferring to the company’s house. Jones is quite known as a designer and Highgett as choreographer. (They worked together in “Harry Potter and El Niño Curso”, so Jones won a Tony in 2018). In this interpretation, history is solved drastically, registered in comfortable less than two hours, and there is a strong emphasis on music and visuals.

The action on the stage is interspersed with subtly reworking fragments and deconstructed riffs of the Radiohead songs. A group of musicians, supervised by Tom Brady, plays behind glass at the back of the stage, while two singers take voices from a balcony. The actors periodically slide dance movements in the form inside, synchronized and strange gestures with a variety of voltage, swirl and rolling movements. They dance a spooky waltz to the Lower Funky or “Go To Sleep” line, and the song choir: “Something big will happen / on my corpse” – it means the butcher shop that is to come.

Music and movement are combined to evoke a sense of adequate threat, although it is a penalty that the monochromatic aesthetics of production has become so common, thanks in large part to its deployable actors of cylinders of profile cylinders rather that rises to the profiles of profile more tight by the cylinders. A dark scenario illuminated by outstanding or rectangles of neon: it is a gloaming by numbers, almost too crunchy to be spooky. (The design of the set is from the collective amplifier scene, in collaboration with Sadra Teherani).

Samuel Blenkin plays the main role, a strand mixture of pots, moderate school and ennui emphasis. And Paul Hilton brings a ferric fibrous to Hamlet’s uncle, Claudio, whose murder of Hamlet’s father, and rapid marriage to his mother, Gertrude, establishes the story. In this representation, Claudio is a nervous disaster full of guilt, swelling a cigarette while praying, and even more nervous than the black prince himself. At one time, the two men participate in a dance with light, their bodies are entangled and their heads buzz, to symbolize their conflict.

But the other characters do not come alive in this countless countless. We never have the opportunity to establish ourselves in your company, so your problems are the range: Claudia Harrison Gertrude is frantic, but more in the way that some challenge a parking fine that a recently biguada widow who has been married married married married married married married married married married married with the married married married married married married married. Married-lawwawwawwawwawwawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwawwawwawawawawawawawawwawawawwawawawwawawawawawwawawawawawawawawawawawawawawawawawalayawawawawawawawawawawawawawawawawawawawaughawawawawaws The Patios of Olivia de Ami Tredrea feels useless and, therefore, goes through.

And the dance, although arrested in itself, has the unfortunate effect of sucking drama energy. Sometimes, dialogue feels so incongruous with the staging that it is believed that Hamlet has stumbled with a company of Tai Chi funeral.

This production seeks to count again “village” in a way that transcends the language, distilling to an essence. Since language is essential for Shakespeare’s lasting attraction, this is ambitious admiring and a bit silly.

“Hamlet Hail to the Thief” is a convincing show, and perhaps the most successful tribute band I have returned. The singers, Ed Begley and Megan Hill, imbute Radiohead’s songs with an ethereal beauty more than worthy of Yorke himself. (Two numbers sung by Blenkin and Tredrea are also impressive). But it seems that a little Shakespeare has been added to Radiohead’s music, instead of the other way around. Production can occupy a place in the pantheon of defective but valuable companies, such as those swollen conceptual albums of the 1970s that were precursors to “receive the thief.”