I'm generally opposed to trifling with Shakespeare: didn't care for Olivier's modernizing The Merchant of Venice, for instance. But I must say this treatment in Blenham Palace works completely. It's a mesmerizing version, at the top of the heap. At first I thought Branagh was throwing the part away, perhaps too burdened by his production responsibilities; but then I realized he was just playing it straight. And how welcome! All our great actors have to color the part somehow: Geilgud's melancholy, Olivier's indecisiveness, Gibson's bravura. But Branagh finds the emotions already there; and he takes the immortal prince and makes him believable, and eminently human. Be prepared for weeping that cleans the soul by the time Placido Domingo gives us the final solo. A classic, in every sense of the word.
