Hamnet

Garrick Theatre. December 16, 2023

This is really the story of Agnes, her relationship with Will, her escape from her archetypal evil step mother, her relationship with nature, and her children, her position from rural wife to urban matriarch.

She goes to the woods to have her first child, she understands natural remedies that she prefers to the quackery of the local doctor.

The position of women at this time is startlingly clear. Women are possessions, they belong at home, they tend, the clean, they care, they rear.

During the moments of Judith’s illness the power of the women working together to care for the next generation was very powerful. This felt in stark contrast to the men’s work of theatre that felt trivial and unimportant.

A lesson.

The staging is beautiful and makes clever use of the space on multi-levels that works for the grand circle, the dress circle and the stalls. Loved this.

I felt genuinely moved at the end when husband and wife reconcile over their only son’s legacy and the Shakespeare I’ve seen the most: Hamlet.

4/5 the power of women