Performing Hamlet

Reviews / Votes

In Performing Hamlet Croall gives a glimpse into preparing and performing the role of Hamlet ... Croall's examination is not purely academic: he enriches it with interviews of five actors and six directors engaged in productions of Hamlet. This makes the text much more appealing and applicable to the modern actor/director. Chapter 9 offers an extensive "day in the life" look at the 2000 National Theatre production with Simon Russell Beale as Hamlet. This chapter helps convey the fast-paced life of the professional actor in preparation, performance, and touring ... This is a solid and fresh study for actors/directors and those researching the production history of Hamlet. Summing Up: Recommended. * Choice * An extremely impressive work which will be of great interest not only to actors and directors tackling this most demanding of plays but also to people studying Hamlet as a work of literature. * Shiny New Books * This absorbing study embraces an extraordinary range of directorial and acting approaches to the Himalayan challenges offered by the play. As might be expected in the light of his magisterial biographies of John Gielgud and Sybil Thorndike, Croall's account of the phenomenon that is the play is superbly researched. It is hard to do justice to such a rich array of viewpoints. * Australian Book Review * I'm so glad to see such a detailed analysis of the work Simon Russell Beale and I did together. The book looks very handsome and has been much admired. * John Caird * I had a wonderful time reading the book. All the chapters are fascinating. * Simon Godwin * 'Tracking more than 70 years of a range of actors tackling one of the biggest roles in theatre, Jonathan Croall's insightful Performing Hamlet....is a look often not just behind the scenes, but deeper than that. A reflection of the cost, and the catalytic energy, making theatre and performances takes on those who have dedicated their lives to it. And that is what I go to theatre books for.' -- David Byrne, a judge of The Society for Theatre Research's 2019 Theatre Book Prize