Hamnet, Shakespeare Theatre Company

First, I have a longstanding policy when it comes to adaptations: whenever possible, encounter the adaptation first, and only seek out the original after. This way, you can meet the adaptation on its own merits instead of focusing on changes and missing pieces, and most of the time, even a poor adaptation doesn't mar your reception of the original. 

Second, I nearly wrote my undergraduate senior thesis on depictions of William Shakespeare in fiction, and why writers are so drawn to fleshing out the little we know for sure about a man whose art looms over our popular imagination. I didn't write that essay mostly because I couldn't actually figure out the answer to my question, but it did mean when I saw Maggie O'Farrell's book appear on publication lists, I took note. Someone was at it again. Life conspired to keep me from checking out the book on my own, and when I saw that the Shakespeare Theatre Company was bringing a theatrical adaptation to the 2025-2026 season, I sat back. Oh that's fine, Lolita Chakrabarti is a playwright I've really enjoyed in the past, that's ideal. I knew many people who had been profoundly moved, first by the book and then by its subsequent film adaptation, and I've been eager to discover the answer of why O'Farrell's version of this family has connected so strongly with audiences.

Photo of the cast of Hamnet by Kyle Flubacker

Having now seen Erica Whyman's production of Hamnet, I once again find myself without a firm answer, and due to this being the only version of this story I have before me, I don't know why that is.

The problem is not Kemi-Bo Jacobs as Agnes, the central figure of this production. Her performance is grounded and visceral as Agnes Hathaway, striving for understanding and connection despite so often being turned away. It becomes almost frustrating that something framed so clearly as her story doesn't bear her name as its title, and instead intrinsically says that the most interesting part of her life is the son she will lose who will become inspiration for the Very Important Man in her life to write his Very Important Play. That, surely, can't be the point of the story that's so captured the imagination of audiences, can it? Even the sequences near the end of the play don't seem to shed any particular revelation beyond what we have intuited through history: Shakespeare wrote a play called Hamlet, and all its complexities and agonies and contradictions, shortly after he lost his son, Hamnet. He probably did it because he was sad. His family was also very sad, but lucky for all of us and I suppose also them, the power of art can transform?

None of this is untrue! But it also doesn't feel particularly new to watch Rory Alexander as Shakespeare behaving like any other failhusband who likes his wife but wants to live his own life more. Alexander is a skilled actor, and the audience can see why Agnes and Will might initially be drawn to each other, each seeking their own version of an escape, but that doesn't feel like enough to hang a play on when we all enter knowing he's going to leave all too soon.

Ultimately, I don't know why this Hamnet didn't work for me, if the fault lies in the production, the adaptation, the novel, or the fact that life, even veiled by four hundred years or more, doesn't map to a neat and tidy story arc. The power of art to help us process grief is cliche until you find it in your own life when you need it most, and perhaps this is the story someone else needs in this moment. Art is funny that way, after all.