ATW News Digest - Public Theater 'Hamlet' opens in Central Park - read the reviews

AmericanTheaterWeb.com

Hamlet' in Central Park - Gearing Up For Youthful Rebellion

New York Times

Whips and Scorns of Time, Stinging All They Touch
As played by Michael Stuhlbarg, Hamlet is unavoidably watchable and on occasion quite entertaining, but never for an instant moving.

New York Daily News

Not-so-great Dane for 'Hamlet'
Can a show be both fevered and flat? Yes. That's clear in the Public Theater's high-strung but stubbornly uninvolving "Hamlet" in Central Park, writes Joe Dziemianowicz.

Newsday

Review: Public Theater's 'Hamlet' in Central Park
Oskar Eustis is doing a spectacular job as the head of the Public Theater. In the three years since he succeeded George C. Wolfe in the cauldron created in 1954 by Joseph Papp, the multiple theaters have been bursting with a breadth of interests, passions and intelligence.

New York Post

Hamlet and cheese
The most interesting Hamlets convey an air of mystery, of ambiguity, that keeps us guessing: Just how crazy is he? Sadly, there's no......

New York Sun

A 'Hamlet' With Bells, Whistles & Puppets

Star-Ledger

A worthy 'Hamlet'? Not to be
A terribly significant concept, a dreary leading man and a performance that lasts way over three hours reduces an outdoor staging of "Hamlet" to a butt- numbing experience.

Bergen Record

Review: 'Hamlet'
It’s hard to figure the “why” of the “Hamlet” that opened Tuesday night at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

Associated Press

An overly agitated Hamlet stalks the stage in Central Park

Back Stage

Hamlet reviewed by David Sheward
There is a manic excitement in this Hamlet's mercurial mood swings, but these flashes of fire fail to ignite his overall soggy, sobbing presence.

Variety

Review: Hamlet
Oskar Eustis' bloodless retelling of "Hamlet" awkwardly reshapes an intimate tale of death and revenge into one of political conflict and disillusionment with the military-minded ruling class. As reasoned as the interpretation may be, it dulls the melancholy human heart of the play -- a problem exacerbated by Michael Stuhlbarg's inconsistent characterization as the brooding Dane.

Bloomberg.com

Disastrous (If Funny) Hamlet Growls and Howls in Central Park: John Simon
Oskar Eustis's Central Park revival is the most misguided ``Hamlet'' I have ever seen. If there existed a booby prize for consummate demolition of Shakespeare, Eustis would win it hands down.

TheaterMania

Review: Hamlet
Michael Stuhlbarg gives a surprisingly hammy performance in Oskar Eustis' badly directed version of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Hamlet
When Elizabeth Kübler-Ross introduced her model for the Five Stages of Grief in her 1969 book On Death and Dying, she must have been foreseeing Michael Stuhlbarg's performance in the title role of the new production of Hamlet at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. . .

CurtainUp

Review: Hamlet

USA Today

Shakespeare in the Park gets a stylish celebration

Philadelphia Inquirer

An emotional Prince centers this 'Hamlet'
Shakespeare in the Park works its magic again. The play begins while it's still daylight, and when Marcellus, seeing the ghost of the King, cries out to Horatio, "Look, where it comes again!" everyone turned to look....