Hamstrung

Gather around! Yorick, the legendary jester in #Shakespeare's "Hamlet”, takes centre stage from the great beyond for what might be the first, second or hundredth time in this never-ending Groundhog Day afterlife extravaganza...🤹

This is “Hamstrung”, George M. Renni's #soloshow and a #tragicomic excavation of whose stories get to be told🎭 What starts with games, jokes & lively audience interaction, quickly evolves into Yorick's existential contemplation on what it means to be *truly* alive…

Picture this: dried petals, candlelight, and half-eaten apples scattered around the stage, creating an atmosphere both romantic & macabre🥀 Enter #Yorick, the jester from Hamlet's childhood, ready to perform his one goal in life: keep the mirth in the royal court's evenings...

If your #Hamlet knowledge is reduced to a “To be, or not to be” bumper sticker, worry not. George M. Rennie deftly intertwines the jester's narration & “Hamlet”'s lines to keep us in the loop with great detail...

As this is a jester’s tale, audience interaction is a must! Rennie’s high-spirited performance, tinged with hilarious strokes of #slapstick, constantly boosts the energy. However, top-heavy interaction is taken a tad too far, resulting in second-hand embarrassment situations that somewhat distract from the show’s central themes😅...

Which brings us to Yorick’s musings👀 Hamlet’s descent into madness forces our merry jester to realise his disposable existence as a servant, a mere prop in someone else’s story & always stuck playing the fool. When the time comes for introspection, and despite Rennie’s brilliantly nuanced performance, the 360-degree tonal shift catches us off-guard. Audiences are understandably pumped up by the "interaction mode", which somewhat waters down the moments of deep self-reflection…

However, “Hamstrung” remains stirring & impactful, cleverly tapping into the timelessness of one of Shakespeare's most famous works to contemplate modern dilemmas— that is, living for others & the void that may bring. It nudges us to give a playful, though-provoking shake-up to our relationship with work and, most crucially, our relationship with work and, most crucially, ourselves. 4/5⭐