Shakespeare's day to the Interregnum Shakespeare almost certainly wrote the role of Hamlet for
Richard Burbage. He was the chief tragedian of the
Lord Chamberlain's Men, with a capacious memory for lines and a wide emotional range. Judging by the number of reprints,
Hamlet appears to have been Shakespeare's fourth most popular play during his lifetime—only
Henry IV Part 1,
Richard III and
Pericles eclipsed it. Shakespeare provides no clear indication of when his play is set; however, as Elizabethan actors performed at the
Globe in contemporary dress on minimal sets, this would not have affected the staging. Firm evidence for specific early performances of the play is scant. It is sometimes argued that the crew of the ship
Red Dragon, anchored off
Sierra Leone, performed
Hamlet in September 1607; however, this claim is based on a 19th-century insert of a 'lost' passage into a period document, and is today widely regarded as a hoax, likely to have been perpetrated by
John Payne Collier. More credible is that the play toured in Germany within five years of Shakespeare's death, and that it was performed before
James I in 1619 and
Charles I in 1637. Oxford editor George Hibbard argues that, since the contemporary literature contains many allusions and references to
Hamlet (only
Falstaff is mentioned more, from Shakespeare), the play was surely performed with a frequency that the historical record misses. All theatres were closed down by the
Puritan government during the
Interregnum. Even during this time, however, playlets known as
drolls were often performed illegally, including one called
The Grave-Makers based on act 5, scene 1 of
Hamlet.
Restoration and 18th century The play was revived early in the
Restoration. When the existing stock of pre-
civil war plays was divided between the two newly created
patent theatre companies,
Hamlet was the only Shakespearean favourite that
Sir William Davenant's
Duke's Company secured. It became the first of Shakespeare's plays to be presented with movable
flats painted with generic scenery behind the
proscenium arch of
Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. This new stage convention highlighted the frequency with which Shakespeare shifts dramatic location, encouraging the recurrent criticism of his failure to maintain
unity of place. In the title role, Davenant cast
Thomas Betterton, who continued to play the Dane until he was 74.
David Garrick at
Drury Lane produced a version that adapted Shakespeare heavily; he declared: "I had sworn I would not leave the stage till I had rescued that noble play from all the rubbish of the fifth act. I have brought it forth without the grave-digger's trick, Osrick, & the fencing match". The first actor known to have played Hamlet in North America is Lewis Hallam Jr., in the
American Company's production in Philadelphia in 1759. expresses Hamlet's shock at his first sighting of the ghost (artist: unknown).
John Philip Kemble made his Drury Lane debut as Hamlet in 1783. His performance was said to be 20 minutes longer than anyone else's, and his lengthy pauses provoked the suggestion by
Richard Brinsley Sheridan that "music should be played between the words".
Sarah Siddons was the first actress known to play Hamlet; many women have since played him as a
breeches role, to great acclaim. In 1748,
Alexander Sumarokov wrote a Russian adaptation that focused on Prince Hamlet as the embodiment of an opposition to Claudius's tyranny—a treatment that would recur in Eastern European versions into the 20th century. In the years following America's independence,
Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, the young nation's leading tragedian, performed
Hamlet among other plays at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, and at the
Park Theatre in New York. Although chided for "acknowledging acquaintances in the audience" and "inadequate memorisation of his lines", he became a national celebrity.
19th century ), showing several of the key scenes From around 1810 to 1840, the best-known Shakespearean performances in the United States were tours by leading London actors—including
George Frederick Cooke,
Junius Brutus Booth,
Edmund Kean,
William Charles Macready, and
Charles Kemble. Of these, Booth remained to make his career in the States, fathering the nation's most notorious actor,
John Wilkes Booth (who later assassinated
Abraham Lincoln), and its most famous Hamlet,
Edwin Booth. Edwin Booth's
Hamlet at the
Fifth Avenue Theatre in 1875 was described as "... the dark, sad, dreamy, mysterious hero of a poem. [... acted] in an ideal manner, as far removed as possible from the plane of actual life". Booth played Hamlet for 100 nights in the 1864/5 season at the
Winter Garden Theatre, inaugurating the era of long-run Shakespeare in America. In the United Kingdom, the actor-managers of the
Victorian era (including Kean,
Samuel Phelps, Macready, and
Henry Irving) staged Shakespeare in a grand manner, with elaborate scenery and costumes. The tendency of actor-managers to emphasise the importance of their own central character did not always meet with the critics' approval.
George Bernard Shaw's praise for
Johnston Forbes-Robertson's performance contains a sideswipe at Irving: "The story of the play was perfectly intelligible, and quite took the attention of the audience off the principal actor at moments. What is the
Lyceum coming to?" In London, Edmund Kean was the first Hamlet to abandon the regal finery usually associated with the role in favour of a plain costume, and he is said to have surprised his audience by playing Hamlet as serious and introspective. In stark contrast to earlier opulence,
William Poel's 1881 production of the Q1 text was an early attempt at reconstructing the Elizabethan theatre's austerity; his only backdrop was a set of red curtains.
Sarah Bernhardt played the prince in her popular 1899 London production. In contrast to the "effeminate" view of the central character that usually accompanied a female casting, she described her character as "manly and resolute, but nonetheless thoughtful ... [he] thinks before he acts, a trait indicative of great strength and great spiritual power". In France, Charles Kemble initiated an enthusiasm for Shakespeare; and leading members of the Romantic movement such as
Victor Hugo and
Alexandre Dumas saw his 1827 Paris performance of
Hamlet, particularly admiring the madness of
Harriet Smithson's Ophelia. In Germany,
Hamlet had become so assimilated by the mid-19th century that
Ferdinand Freiligrath declared that "Germany is Hamlet". From the 1850s, the
Parsi theatre tradition in India transformed
Hamlet into folk performances, with dozens of songs added.
20th century Apart from some western troupes' 19th-century visits, the first professional performance of Hamlet in Japan was
Otojirō Kawakami's 1903
Shinpa ("new school theatre") adaptation.
Tsubouchi Shōyō translated
Hamlet and produced a performance in 1911 that blended
Shingeki ("new drama") and
Kabuki styles. This hybrid-genre reached its peak in
Tsuneari Fukuda's 1955
Hamlet. In 1998,
Yukio Ninagawa produced an acclaimed version of
Hamlet in the style of
Nō theatre, which he took to London.
Konstantin Stanislavski and
Edward Gordon Craig—two of the 20th century's most influential
theatre practitioners—collaborated on the
Moscow Art Theatre's seminal
production of 1911–12. While Craig favoured stylised abstraction, Stanislavski, armed with his
'system,' explored psychological motivation. Craig conceived of the play as a
symbolist monodrama, offering a dream-like vision as seen through Hamlet's eyes alone. This was most evident in the staging of the first court scene. The most famous aspect of the production is Craig's use of large, abstract screens that altered the size and shape of the acting area for each scene, representing the character's state of mind spatially or visualising a
dramaturgical progression. The production attracted enthusiastic and unprecedented worldwide attention for the theatre and placed it "on the cultural map for Western Europe". The first modern dress stagings of
Hamlet happened in 1925 in London and then New York. Barry Jackson's
Birmingham Repertory Theatre opened their production, directed by H.K. Ayliff at the Kingsway Theatre on August 25, 1925. Ivor Brown reported, "Many of the first night audience came to scoff and remained to hold its breath, to marvel and enjoy ... Shakespeare's victory over time and tailoring was swift and sweeping." Horace Brisbin Liveright's modern dress production opened at the Booth Theater in New York on November 9, 1925, the same night that the London production moved to Birmingham. It was known "more dryly, and perhaps with a touch of something more sinister, as 'the plain-clothes
Hamlet" and did not reach the same level of success. Other New York portrayals of
Hamlet of note include that of
Ralph Fiennes's in 1995 (for which he won the
Tony Award for Best Actor)—which ran, from first preview to closing night, a total of one hundred performances. About the Fiennes
Hamlet Vincent Canby wrote in
The New York Times that it was "... not one for literary sleuths and Shakespeare scholars. It respects the play, but it doesn't provide any new material for arcane debates on what it all means. Instead it's an intelligent, beautifully read ..."
Stacy Keach played the role with an all-star cast at
Joseph Papp's
Delacorte Theater in the early 1970s, with
Colleen Dewhurst's Gertrude,
James Earl Jones's King,
Barnard Hughes's Polonius,
Sam Waterston's Laertes and
Raul Julia's Osric. Sam Waterston later played the role himself at the Delacorte for the
New York Shakespeare Festival, and the show transferred to the
Vivian Beaumont Theater in 1975 (
Stephen Lang played Bernardo and other roles). Stephen Lang's
Hamlet for the
Roundabout Theatre Company in 1992 received mixed reviews and ran for sixty-one performances.
David Warner played the role with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in 1965.
William Hurt (at
Circle Repertory Company off-Broadway, memorably performing "
To be, or not to be" while lying on the floor),
Jon Voight at Rutgers, and
Christopher Walken (fiercely) at Stratford, Connecticut, have all played the role, as has
Diane Venora at
The Public Theatre. The
Internet Broadway Database lists sixty-six productions of
Hamlet.
Ian Charleson performed Hamlet from 9 October to 13 November 1989, in
Richard Eyre's production at the
Olivier Theatre, replacing
Daniel Day-Lewis, who had abandoned the production. Seriously ill from
AIDS at the time, Charleson died eight weeks after his last performance. Fellow actor and friend,
Sir Ian McKellen, said that Charleson played Hamlet so well it was as if he had rehearsed the role all his life; McKellen called it "the perfect Hamlet". The performance garnered other major accolades as well, some critics echoing McKellen in calling it the definitive Hamlet performance.
Keanu Reeves performed Hamlet from 12 January to 4 February 1995 at the
Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (
Winnipeg, Manitoba). The production garnered positive reviews from worldwide media outlets.
21st century Hamlet continues to be staged regularly. Actors performing the lead role have included:
Simon Russell Beale,
Ben Whishaw,
David Tennant,
Tom Hiddleston,
Angela Winkler,
Samuel West,
Christopher Eccleston,
Maxine Peake,
Rory Kinnear,
Oscar Isaac,
Michael Sheen,
Christian Camargo,
Paapa Essiedu and
Michael Urie. In May 2009,
Hamlet opened with
Jude Law in the title role at the
Donmar Warehouse West End season at
Wyndham's Theatre. The production officially opened on 3 June and ran through 22 August 2009. A further production with Jude Law ran at
Elsinore Castle in Denmark from 25 to 30 August 2009, and then moved to Broadway, and ran for 12 weeks at the
Broadhurst Theatre in New York. In October 2011, a production starring
Michael Sheen opened at the
Young Vic, in which the play was set inside a psychiatric hospital. In 2013, American actor
Paul Giamatti played the title role of
Hamlet in
modern dress, at the
Yale Repertory Theatre, at
Yale University in
New Haven, Connecticut. The
Globe Theatre of London initiated a project in 2014 to perform
Hamlet in every country in the world in the space of two years. Titled
Globe to Globe Hamlet, it began its tour on 23 April 2014, the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, and performed in 197 countries.
Benedict Cumberbatch played the role for a 12-week run in a production directed by
Lyndsey Turner at the
Barbican Theatre, opening on 25 August 2015. It was called the "most in-demand theatre production of all time" and sold out in seven hours after tickets went on sale 11 August 2014, more than a year before the play opened. This production also featured modern dress, and included Hamlet in a
David Bowie-themed
T-shirt. A 2017
Almeida Theatre production, directed by
Robert Icke and starring
Andrew Scott, was transferred that same year to the West End's
Harold Pinter Theatre.
Tom Hiddleston played the role for a three-week run at
Vanbrugh Theatre that opened on 1 September 2017 and was directed by
Kenneth Branagh. In 2018,
The Globe Theatre's newly instated artistic director
Michelle Terry played the role in a production notable for its
gender-blind casting. A production by
Bristol Old Vic starring
Billy Howle in title role,
Niamh Cusack as Gertrude,
Mirren Mack as Ophelia opened on 13 October 2022.
Film and TV performances An early film version of
Hamlet is
Sarah Bernhardt's five-minute film of the fencing scene, which was produced in 1900. The film was an early attempt at combining
sound and film; music and words were recorded on phonograph records, to be played along with the film. Silent versions were released in 1907, 1908, 1910, 1913, 1917, and 1920. In the 1921 film
Hamlet, Danish actress
Asta Nielsen played the role of Hamlet as a woman who spends her life disguised as a man.
Laurence Olivier's 1948 moody black-and-white
Hamlet won
Best Picture and
Best Actor Academy Awards and is , the only Shakespeare film to have done so. His interpretation stressed the Oedipal overtones of the play and cast 28-year-old
Eileen Herlie as Hamlet's mother opposite himself at 41 as Hamlet. In 1953, actor
Jack Manning performed the play in 15-minute segments over two weeks in the short-lived late night
DuMont series
Monodrama Theater.
New York Times TV critic Jack Gould praised Manning's performance as Hamlet. The 1964 Soviet film
Hamlet () is based on a translation by
Boris Pasternak and directed by
Grigori Kozintsev, with a score by
Dmitri Shostakovich.
Innokenty Smoktunovsky was cast in the role of Hamlet. John Gielgud directed
Richard Burton in a
Broadway production at the
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in 1964–65, the longest-running
Hamlet in the U.S. to date. A live film of the production was produced using "Electronovision", a method of recording a live performance with multiple video cameras and converting the image to film. Eileen Herlie repeated her role from Olivier's film version as the Queen, and the voice of Gielgud was heard as the ghost. The Gielgud/Burton production was also recorded complete and released on LP by
Columbia Masterworks. as Hamlet, with
Yorick's skull (photographer:
James Lafayette, ) The first
Hamlet in color was a
1969 film directed by
Tony Richardson with
Nicol Williamson as Hamlet and
Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia. In 1990
Franco Zeffirelli, whose Shakespeare films have been described as "sensual rather than cerebral", cast
Mel Gibson—then famous for the
Mad Max and
Lethal Weapon movies—in the title role of his
1990 version;
Glenn Close—then famous as the psychotic "other woman" in
Fatal Attraction—played Gertrude, and
Paul Scofield played Hamlet's father.
Kenneth Branagh adapted, directed, and starred in a 1996 film version of
Hamlet that contained material from the First Folio and the Second Quarto. Branagh's
Hamlet was the first unabridged theatrical film adaptation of the play and has a runtime of 242 minutes (just over four hours). Branagh set the film with late 19th-century costuming and furnishings, a production in many ways reminiscent of a Russian novel of the time, and
Blenheim Palace, built in the early 18th century, became Elsinore Castle in the external scenes. The film is structured as an
epic and makes frequent use of
flashbacks to highlight elements not made explicit in the play: Hamlet's sexual relationship with
Kate Winslet's Ophelia, for example, or his childhood affection for Yorick (played by
Ken Dodd). In 2000,
Michael Almereyda's
Hamlet set the story in contemporary
Manhattan, with
Ethan Hawke playing Hamlet as a film student. Claudius (played by
Kyle MacLachlan) became the CEO of "Denmark Corporation", having taken over the company by killing his brother. The 2014
Bollywood film
Haider is an adaptation set in modern
Kashmir. In 2025, the Tribeca Film festival hosted at the Public Theatre the world premiere of a completely audio production of the play by Make-Believe Association with Daniel Kyri in the title role. Using Shakespeare's text, it brought listeners into Hamlet's mind to hear only what he heard; it continues as a six-part podcast. ==Derivative works==