ABSTRACT
Ralph Fiennes’s Hamlet is a modern Hamlet for rotten times. Our first sight of the star is of a tragic antihero alone, his back turned on us and the court. Rage is his motif. He is a Hamlet without the princeliness: unregal, unshaven, unkempt, a dark contemporary grunge Hamlet on the precipice. In isolation, he might be a rock star about to explode in smoke and klieg lights, hurling his black trench coat aside to turn and shout to his adoring fans: “Love ya, Cleveland!”
