Review: (Ottawa) Hamlet (solo)

The Lonely Melancholy Dane
by Jim Murchison

There is no set. There are no costumes. There is just one supremely talented actor in a well-directed Hamlet that wrings all manner of subtleties from the Bard’s words.

Raoul Bhaneja plays everyone in Hamlet. Just getting to the kernel of the title character could take a lifetime so imagine how many layers you can uncover playing every single character. How do you get to this level of performance and make it look almost effortless. You start workshopping it in 2002 and perform it frequently as a full scale performance since 2006. You also need a director that you trust implicitly and Robert Ross Parker fills that role.