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    A Broadway-Bound ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Leads Olivier Award Nominations

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    The musical, starring Nicole Scherzinger, secured 11 nominations at Britain’s equivalent of the Tony Awards.A revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard,” starring Nicole Scherzinger as a former screen idol descending into madness, received the most nominations on Tuesday for this year’s Olivier Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.The show, which ran at the Savoy Theater in London and will transfer to Broadway this year, is in the running for 11 awards — two more than any other play or musical — including best musical revival, best actress in a musical for Scherzinger and best director for Jamie Lloyd.When the production opened last fall, it impressed London’s often demanding theater critics. Matt Wolf, writing in The New York Times, said the production was, like its lead character, “a bit mad: reckless and daring, stretching its source material to the limit and beyond.”“I can’t imagine another London show generating comparable buzz this season,” Wolf added.Lloyd’s maverick production features hand-held cameras that are used to spotlight characters’ emotions at pivotal moments. Although critics appreciated the technique, Lloyd faces stiff competition in the best director category. The other nominees include Sam Mendes for “The Motive and the Cue,” which debuted last spring at the National Theater. The play, by Jack Thorne, dramatizes a fraught backstage relationship between Richard Burton and John Gielgud as they rehearse a Broadway production.Justin Martin, who directed “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” also received an Olivier nomination.Manuel HarlanRupert Goold is also nominated for best director, for “Dear England,” a play about the English national soccer team that also ran at the National Theater and transferred to the West End. That show secured nine nominations.Despite receiving mixed reviews, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” a theatrical prequel to the Netflix show that is running at the Phoenix Theater, secured five nominations, including best new entertainment or comedy play. Houman Barekat, reviewing the production in The New York Times, said it was “exactly what you’d expect from a show co-produced by Netflix: Cheap thrills, expensively made.”This year’s nominations include a hint of TV glamour in many categories. Among the nominees for best actress in a play are Sarah Jessica Parker for “Plaza Suite,” which runs through April 13 at the Savoy Theater, and Sarah Snook (of “Succession”) for a one-woman “The Picture of Dorian Gray” at the Theater Royal Haymarket, through May 11.They will compete for that title against Laura Donnelly for “The Hills of California” at the Harold Pinter Theater, Sheridan Smith for “Shirley Valentine” at the Duke of York’s Theater, and Sophie Okonedo for “Medea” at @sohoplace.The best actor nominees include Andrew Scott for a one-man “Vanya” at the Duke of York’s Theater, and James Norton for his performance in “A Little Life” at the Harold Pinter Theater. The other nominees are Joseph Fiennes for “Dear England,” Mark Gatiss for “The Motive and the Cue,” and David Tennant for “Macbeth” at the Donmar Warehouse.The winners of this year’s awards are scheduled to be announced April 14 in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. More

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      Ncuti Gatwa Is the Newest ”Doctor Who.” Here’s How He Stacks Up.

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      As Ncuti Gatwa makes his proper debut, we take a look back at the recent history of those to inhabit the TARDIS.With most TV shows, a major casting change is a dreaded event. But for fans of the long-running British series “Doctor Who,” big casting changes are expected, even anticipated. With the show’s latest Christmas episode, which premiered Monday on Disney+, we got acquainted with the newest Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa (“Sex Education”) — the 15th Doctor and the first Black, openly queer one in series history.The arrival of a new Doctor, the show’s titular time-traveling, space-wandering alien, is always a buzzy occasion. But although the Doctor typically dies and is regenerated in the final minutes of some climactic episode, it is the one immediately following that truly establishes the new incarnation and what kind of flavor he or she will offer. These first full episodes with a new Doctor, including this year’s Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” can reveal a lot about how that Doctor’s tenure will go.Here’s a look back at the first post-regeneration episodes of every Doctor since the show’s 2005 revival.David Tennant and Billie Piper from 2005 in “Doctor Who.”BBC10th DoctorActor: David TennantFirst Full Episode: “The Christmas Invasion”Writer: Russell T. DaviesFirst Words: “Hello. OK. New teeth, that’s weird. So, where was I? Oh, that’s right! Barcelona.”After a successful revival in 2005 — with one tight season of Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor and Billie Piper as the Doctor’s plucky shopgirl companion, Rose Tyler — the series hit its stride with the next three seasons, starting with what is perhaps the best reincarnation episode since the series’s return, “The Christmas Invasion.” The episode was an auspicious start to the show’s new Golden Age, led by the showrunner and writer Russell T. Davies, with David Tennant as the Doctor.The 10th Doctor delivers a rambling monologue full of queries about what kind of man he is, like Shakespeare refracted through some prism of intergalactic and temporal mysteries; but Tennant’s performance never allows any doubt that he knows who his Doctor is. In a scene near the end of the episode, Tennant’s Doctor firmly declares, “No second chances; I’m that kind of man,” while sending an enemy to his doom. The scene offered a preview of how perfectly Tennant’s Doctor would embody the duality of this hero through his three-plus seasons in the TARDIS — a masterly balance of stillness and chatter, heft and levity.Karen Gillan with Matt Smith, who became the youngest Doctor in the show’s history.BBC11th DoctorActor: Matt SmithFirst Full Episode: “The Eleventh Hour”Writer: Steven MoffatFirst Words: “Legs! I’ve still got legs!”It’s fitting that Matt Smith’s playful young Doctor (the youngest, in fact; Smith was just 26 when cast for the role) begins his tenure in a state of chaos, hanging out of a spinning TARDIS. Known for his fast talking, ebullient charm, the 11th Doctor is manic and wide-eyed in the manner of a precocious kid on a sugar high.Crashing into the yard of a young Amelia Pond (Karen Gillan), who is independent and fearless but for the menacing crack in her bedroom wall, the Doctor arrives ready to step into the role of savior, though he is frazzled dealing with a resetting TARDIS and the aftereffects of his regeneration. Popping back into his TARDIS and promising Amelia he’ll be back in five minutes, the Doctor returns to find that little Amelia has grown up into Amy, who spent years waiting for a man everyone doubted was real.Amy’s life is shaped around the absence of a magical man whom she clings to with a strangely unflappable faith. Her emotional arc with the Doctor is her learning to become independent from the Doctor. But the 11th’s moments of tenderness — as when he grabs the young Amelia’s hand, anticipating the danger — presage the familial relationship that the Doctor will develop with the older Amy and her boyfriend and future centurion husband, Rory (Arthur Darvill).Peter Capaldi, center, as the 12th Doctor.BBC12th DoctorActor: Peter CapaldiFirst Full Episode: “Deep Breath”Writer: Steven MoffatFirst words: “Kidneys! I’ve got new kidneys! I don’t like the color.”In Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor and Jenna Coleman’s Clara Oswald, Moffat created another cute, flirtatious pairing for the TARDIS. The rapid-fire repartee and seamless synergy between the two got a harsh shake-up in the form of the Doctor’s regeneration into the 12th, played by Peter Capaldi.This post-regeneration episode — which starts in Victorian London, where a dinosaur spontaneously combusts in the Thames, and ends as an organ-stealing cyborg tries to escape in a hot-air balloon made of human skin — was a brooding start for the 12th, whose tenure signaled a sharp tonal shift from the 11th’s. Capaldi’s Doctor is rude and pretentious, quick to condescend those around him and snap a quick “shut up.” He is more reminiscent of the Ninth in temperament: He shows more disgust and self-hate, and he is more haunted by his past actions. The 12th appears harsh on the surface but is no less dedicated than previous doctors to keeping everyone safe and alive at the end of the day.Capaldi was 55 when cast in the role, nearly 30 years older than his predecessor, and the show appeared to spend the whole first episode trying to appease fans who might have opposed the big change. In fact, the episode baldly uses the out-of-place dinosaur as a symbol of this much older, out-of-place Doctor. It’s not the most elegant or subtle move, but Capaldi still manages to wring honest emotion from the symbol — something he would continue to do throughout his tenure as Doctor, especially in his later episodes. The 12th never showed the same humanity as the 10th and 11th did, but he had a streak of wisdom that neither could match.Jodie Whittaker, center, presided over a disastrous run as the 13th Doctor.BBC13th DoctorActor: Jodie WhittakerFirst Full Episode: “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”Writer: Chris ChibnallFirst Words: “Oh, brilliant!”“Doctor Who” writers are all guilty, at one time or another, of throwing too much at the wall. But usually a fair percentage sticks. That was not at all true of Chris Chibnall’s writing during Whittaker’s disastrous run as the Doctor.Usually the Doctor’s first episodes are more pared down; there’s no need to get over the top with a Predator-type alien who cheats at his human-hunting exam by using biotech to tag his human — and in the process installs DNA bombs in the collarbones of the Doctor and her new friends.And speaking of friends, the episode is chock-full of them, overcrowding Whittaker’s performance, which remains at a steady level of earnestness and enthusiasm but fails to give nuance or variety. The first episode in a season-long attempt to replicate the more syrupy, wholesome quality of the old “Who” episodes, “The Woman Who Fell to Earth” can’t pull off any sense of menace or stakes, even when some characters begin dying.David Tennant returned as the 14th Doctor.BBC14th DoctorActor: David TennantFirst Full Episode: “The Star Beast”Writer: Russell T. DaviesFirst Words: “I know these teeth. … What? What? What?!”In many ways, the return of Davies and Tennant after the exploding TARDIS disaster that was Seasons 11 through 13 felt like an emergency rescue maneuver. With a few keystrokes, Davies could have undermined or overwritten the 30-plus episodes of the previous Doctor’s arc, but the episode graciously makes a few nods — both comedic and sentimental — to the show’s attempt at telling more progressive and diverse stories during Chibnall’s run, joking at one point that the Doctor’s reversion to cis-male form was clearly a downgrade.“The Star Beast” which begins the abbreviated three-episode return of Tennant’s 10th Doctor, now considered the 14th, is a refreshing return for the show. But even Davies’s captivating dialogue and engaging plots can’t make up for the tissue-thin logic behind this repeat Doctor regeneration.That said, the performances, the reunion of these old faves, the digestible story and the addition of an absurd new alien to the Whoniverse in the form of the Meep (a Furby-type creature that speaks like Yoda), all make “The Star Beast” a solid entry in the “Doctor Who” catalog.Ncuti Gatwa made his full “Doctor Who” debut with the latest Christmas episode. BBC Studios/Bad Wolf15th DoctorActor: Ncuti GatwaFirst Full Episode: “The Church on Ruby Road”Writer: Russell T. DaviesFirst Words: “No way.” “You’re me!” “No, I’m me. I think I’m really, really me!”Another Christmas premiere, “The Church on Ruby Road” is the first full outing for Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor. The plot — involving mischievous, baby-thieving goblins — gets too cutesy at times (a goblin musical number takes things too far), but it tidily connects the Doctor’s complex origin story with that of Ruby, a lively young woman and adoptee who is searching for information on her birth family.Gatwa’s Doctor truly feels like a Doctor Who for the 21st century and a fitting follow-up to Tennant’s Doctor. The 15th is stylish and liberated, with a vibe that is sensual and unbuttoned; he’s a Doctor who seems much more at home than the others in his body. He is chipper but not frivolous, and he is capable of depth that isn’t limited to darkness. At one point in the episode, the 15th Doctor cries — full, drip-down-the-face tears — over the abduction of someone he just met and how that abduction has hardened those implicated in the loss. Gatwa’s Doctor shows a great deal of humanity, which isn’t always a given for the character, who often understands humans intellectually but closes himself off to a more comprehensive human experience. More

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      in Theater

      Ralph Fiennes and David Tennant: Two Very Different ‘Macbeths’

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      Ralph Fiennes and David Tennant take Shakespeare’s psychodrama along divergent paths in two simultaneously running shows.There is more than one way to tell a story. In England, two equally impressive new productions of “Macbeth” prove this, both featuring major stars in the title role and adopting strikingly different approaches to Shakespeare’s classic tale of hubris and betrayal.The first, starring Ralph Fiennes (“The Menu,” “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”), runs at the Depot, a cavernous converted warehouse on an industrial estate in Liverpool. Despite its grittily authentic set design and costumes, it is for the most part a conventional, realist treatment. The second, at the Donmar Warehouse, in London, and starring David Tennant (“Doctor Who,” “Des”), is a rather more high-concept affair, heavy on ambience and atmospherics.The leading men are, likewise, a study in contrasts: Fiennes’s Macbeth is a hulking, lugubrious presence, whereas Tennant’s is a gaunt, energetic bundle of angst.The Fiennes “Macbeth,” directed by Simon Godwin, runs through Dec. 20 at the Depot in Liverpool, before moving on to Edinburgh, London and Washington, D.C., in 2024. The makeshift playhouse features an immersive set: To get to their seats, theatergoers must file past a bleak, dusty landscape of rubble and burned-out cars, suggestive of a war zone. The stage set is an elegant geometric structure in forbidding gray, comprising a number of doors, balconies and stairways, representing the various Scottish castles in which much of the action unfolds. Thin, vertical streaks of blood gradually materialize on its walls as the story progresses.The plot will be familiar to many. Three clairvoyant witches tell Macbeth he will become King of Scotland. With further encouragement from Lady Macbeth (Indira Varma), he proceeds to murder the reigning monarch, Duncan (Keith Fleming), forcing his heirs into exile and taking the crown for himself. He has to carry out several more murders in order to cover his trail, and the guilt starts to consume him; Lady Macbeth urges him to man up, but her own conscience catches up with her in the form of somnambulistic terrors and, eventually, suicide.To get to their seats in Liverpool, theatergoers must file past a bleak, dusty landscape suggestive of war’s aftermath.Matt HumphreyIn this production, Macbeth and his male co-protagonists appear in 21st-century military fatigues; when we see them, intermittently, in civilian attire, it’s understatedly stylish contemporary get-up. (The costumes are by Frankie Bradshaw.) That stark juxtaposition drives home the brutal reality of strongman politics: The ruling class and the military elite are one. There are some deft visual effects — the disappearance of the three witches in puffs of smoke is particularly pleasing — and the acting is consistently strong. Ben Turner is a powerful Macduff, and Varma brings a subtle, darkly comic energy to Lady Macbeth during the famous scene in which Macbeth, confronted with the reproachful ghost of the murdered Banquo, has a meltdown in the middle of a dinner party.A markedly different aesthetic was on offer in the compact, intimate environs of the Donmar, where theatergoers were required to put on headphones upon entry. In this “Macbeth” — directed by Max Webster, featuring Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth and running through Feb. 10, 2024 — the actors wear discreet headsets and their speech is transmitted to the audience digitally.Another “Macbeth,” at the Donmar Warehouse, in London, through Feb. 10, 2024, features David Tennant in the title role, with set and costume design by Rosanna Vize.Marc BrennerI was predisposed to dismiss this as a gimmick, but was pleasantly surprised. The transmitted audio imbues the words with an added richness and immediacy — the deep aural texture of a radio play. The conceit comes into its own in the scenes featuring supernatural elements (the witches, Banquo’s ghost) and during Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness, when eerie vocal echoes are overlaid on the dialogue. At times, the sound alternates abruptly between the left and right earphones.The set and costume design, by Rosanna Vize, are strikingly abstract. With the exception of Lady Macbeth, who wears a white formfitting dress, the cast are clad in an austere uniform of gray or black tops — turtlenecks, vests or collarless jackets — with dark kilts and black Chelsea boots. The stage is a simple white rectangle, at the rear of which, in a boxed-off section behind a transparent screen, a small troupe of musicians provide the play’s soundtrack: a gorgeous blend of Gaelic song and religious chant, composed by Alasdair Macrae and featuring beautifully haunting vocals by the Scottish singer Kathleen MacInnes.Fiennes and Tennant are both outstanding talents, but very different in corporeal stature and bearing. Just a few months ago, Fiennes’s brother, Joseph, delivered a compelling turn as an England soccer coach in “Dear England,” at the National Theater, in London, and there were echoes of that performance here: a certain tentative, beard-stroking pensiveness and lumbering indecision. Ralph’s frame as Macbeth is bearlike, and his turmoil is a slow burn. (I was also reminded of the Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose ill-fated uprising against President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and subsequent demise, had shades of Shakespearean tragedy.)Tennant, left, and Cush Jumbo, who plays Lady Macbeth.Marc BrennerIn contrast, Tennant, with his slim-line physique and withdrawn, vaguely haunted-looking face, has a more expressive emotional energy that lends itself to treacherous intrigue and anguished remorse alike. He is frantic, almost from the get-go. An unlikelier warrior, perhaps, but a more convincing worrier.The truth, of course, is that “Macbeth” doesn’t really require too much jazzing up, because its themes resonate easily enough without embellishment. One is always struck, in particular, by the prescience of the play’s pointed depiction of machismo, long before “toxic masculinity” became a buzz-phrase. Almost every misdeed is incited with an appeal to virility, whether it’s Lady Macbeth goading her husband into going through with their murderous plan (“You will be so much more the man!”), or Macbeth using similar rhetoric to persuade his hit men to kill Banquo.A light touch is key. What these two productions get right is that they conjure just enough novelty, in their visual and aural landscapes, to freshen things up, while still ensuring that the text remains center stage — in all its timeless glory. More

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      in Television

      ‘Doctor Who’ is Back. Here’s What You Need to Know.

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      The British sci-fi show is celebrating its 60th anniversary with three specials featuring some familiar faces.It’s rare for a television show to celebrate its 60th anniversary. It’s even rarer for a show to be entering a new era on its 60th anniversary.But “Doctor Who,” the British sci-fi show that began airing on the BBC in 1963, is in a period of expansion. Three upcoming specials, celebrating the show’s latest milestone, will arrive weekly on Disney+ in the United States from Saturday, as part of a deal between the streamer and the BBC.And then a new season, starring Ncuti Gatwa (“Sex Education”) in the title role, will arrive next year on Disney+ (and the BBC in Britain) following an extra Christmas Day episode. Russell T Davies, who relaunched the show in 2005, is the showrunner for them all.“Doctor Who” has decades of adventures, villains and complex story lines for dedicated fans to immerse themselves in. But if you’re new to the show, here’s what you need to know before tuning into the upcoming specials.A Quick RecapDavid Tennant, right, as the Doctor in Season 4 of “Doctor Who.” Tennant will rejoin the show for the 60th anniversary specials. Adrian Rogers/BBCThe Doctor is a Time Lord from a planet called Gallifrey, who travels across time and space in a Tardis, an unassuming spacecraft that looks like an old British police box, which members of the public used to call the authorities. His mission is to protect Earth, and the humans who live there, from a variety of threats.“The Doctor is the nerd, the well-read misfit, who isn’t particularly physical, who still wins the day,” said Toby Hadoke, an actor who hosts a podcast dedicated to the show. “The Doctor always offers hope for the person who feels slightly left out.”David Tennant, who played the Doctor between 2005 and 2010, and will be back as the star of the 60th anniversary specials, said that he thought the show’s appeal was “the way the domestic and the simplistic and everyday meets the fantastical and the absurd.” In the show’s world, “the most extraordinary things become very relatable,” he said.The show’s longevity is partly thanks to the fact the Doctor can “regenerate,” meaning a new actor can step into the role, but the show also experiments with genre, and the same season can include a historical drama one episode and a modern political satire the next.“Every time the Tardis door opens and the team steps out to a new planet, or a new time, or a new story, then it begins again,” Davies, the showrunner, said.The Doctor usually travels with a regular human companion, who in the 60th anniversary specials is played by the comedian Catherine Tate.Where Are We With the Plot?Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to play the Doctor in Season 13.BBCAt the end of the last season, Jodie Whittaker, the 13th incarnation of the Doctor, regenerated.Traditionally, a new actor plays each incarnation, and Gatwa is confirmed to be the 15th Doctor. But for the upcoming 60th anniversary episodes, Whittaker has turned back into Tennant, who was the 10th Doctor from 2005 to 2010, and then again for a 50th anniversary special in 2013.Rather than reprising the 10th Doctor, in the upcoming specials, Tennant will portray a 14th Doctor, the first time an actor has played two distinct Doctors. (Keeping up?)“Who is to say you can’t do this?” Davies said. “There’s absolutely no doubt that it can happen.”Tate will also reprise her role as Donna Noble, the Doctor’s companion. But in their last adventure together, which aired in 2008, the Doctor wiped Donna’s memory, and with it all recollection of their time together. If Donna remembers him, she will die. And yet they will reunite in the upcoming specials.“I had left our heroes in a tragic situation separated forever, unable to ever be happy again,” Davies said. “That’s begging for a final act, isn’t it?”How to Watch in the U.S.Ncuti Gatwa will star as the Doctor in the show’s upcoming season.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockWhile “Doctor Who” has aired in the United States for a number of years, including on PBS, the Sci Fi Channel and BBC America, the new international distribution deal with Disney+ could make the show more accessible to a casual audience. For new viewers, the 60th anniversary specials will begin with a prologue recapping the Doctor and Donna’s story.If you would like to dive deeper into the back catalog, older “Doctor Who” episodes are available to stream in the United States on Max or BritBox.An Inclusive Sci-Fi ShowYasmin Finney will join the cast of “Doctor Who” in the new season.Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images“Doctor Who” has long been notable among sci-fi franchises for its onscreen diversity. Whittaker became the show’s first female Doctor in 2017, and in 2020, Jo Martin played an incarnation of the Doctor known as the Fugitive Doctor, the show’s first Black doctor. And Yasmin Finney, a trans actor who played Elle in the Netflix show “Heartstopper,” is also joining the cast.“The show has always been good at appreciating inclusivity, and cherishing the different,” said Tennant, who added that he grew up as a “skinny bloke with specs in Scotland, who didn’t feel like the coolest person in the room.”But “the Doctor celebrates uncoolness,” he added. “And that was something I appreciated.” More

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      in Movies

      Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ and Its Insight Into Grief, Family and Gender

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      For one critic, every encounter with this Shakespeare play deepens her understanding of its insights into grief, family and gender.A few weeks ago two friends and I were talking about our obsessions. One had been sleepless all week, playing the new Zelda video game with few breaks. The other revealed that she was deep into Taylor Swift. I said I had so many fandoms that I didn’t know if I could name a favorite.My Swiftie friend quickly set me straight. “We already know your main fandom,” she said. “Hamlet.”It’s true. If you look at my bookshelves, the art on my walls, even the art on my skin, you’ll find anime references and mythological figures, lines from Eliot and Chekhov and illustrations from Borges and Gorey stories. But none of these interests enjoys a prominence as great as the one afforded “Hamlet” in my home — and on my body, where the majority of my tattoos, by far, are inspired by the play.My friends know well that I’ve seen numerous productions of the work, recite Hamlet’s monologues to myself, even put Kenneth Branagh or Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet” on in the background as I clean my apartment. For me, the text’s themes — about death, duality, gender, family — deepen each time I read, see or hear “Hamlet,” and as I grow older, new insights are revealed about the characters and the language.I first read “Hamlet” in high school, as an artsy poetry-writing teenager who found death a fascinating, albeit abstract, concept. I imagined the young prince — witty, privileged yet tortured, and forever trapped in his own head — as kin. He was less a lofty figure of English literature than the emo kid I crushed on, abandoning his math homework to read Dante’s “Inferno” as angsty pop punk played in the background.When I watched Michael Almereyda’s 2000 “Hamlet” film soon after, it did little to disabuse me of this notion. Taking place in New York City, with Ethan Hawke playing a hipster film student who’s heir to the “Denmark Corporation,” this “Hamlet” was contemporary, rife with irony. Watching Hamlet offer the great existential query of “to be or not to be” while strolling the “action movie” aisles of a Blockbuster store, I learned that even tragedy can contain a hearty dose of comedy.When I reread the play for a class on Shakespeare’s tragedies a few years later, I became fixated on one line in particular: “The rest is silence.” With these four words, Hamlet’s last ones in the play, the prince is acknowledging his final breath, but also perhaps breaking the fourth wall, announcing the end of the play like Prospero at the end of “The Tempest.” Or maybe Hamlet is offering us the line in consolation: After five acts of musing on death, he can assure us that death is simple, and it’s quiet. This line is now tattooed on my right arm.In Branagh’s 1996 “Hamlet” film, an unabridged adaptation that paired inspired direction with refined performances and respect for the text, Branagh wheezes out the words, his eyes glassy and staring into the distance. “Silence” lands after a pause, as though he’s listening to the deafening silence of all of humanity that’s preceded him.Clockwise from top left: Laurence Olivier as Hamlet in the 1948 film, Ethan Hawke in the 2000 film, Kenneth Branagh in his 1996 film, Ato Blankson-Wood (with Solea Pfeiffer as Ophelia) in the 2023 Shakespeare in the Park production, Ruth Negga in the 2020 production at St. Ann’s Workshop, and Billy Eugene Jones, left, and Marcel Spears in 2022 Public Theater production of “Fat Ham.”From Olivier’s fervent philosophizing Dane in the 1948 film to David Tennant’s lithe, boyish interpretation in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2008 production, there’s a reason that Prince Hamlet remains one of the most coveted roles an actor, especially a young man of a certain age and celebrity, can take on. “Hamlet” is, after all, a man’s play.In Hawke’s “Hamlet” and Mel Gibson’s visceral, sensually charged 1990 “Hamlet” I first realized how often directors use the female characters as stand-ins for fatalistic, taboo love. (Which is why I also savor gender-crossed Hamlets, whether in the form of the theater pioneer Sarah Bernhardt in 1899 or Ruth Negga in 2020.) Queen Gertrude is either stupid, selfish or promiscuous, blinded by her untamed lust. Many productions opt for a physical staging of Act III, Scene 4, when Hamlet accosts his mother in her bedchamber. Hawke’s Hamlet grabs his mother in a black robe, then presses her against a set of closet doors. Gibson’s deranged Hamlet also fights and clutches at Gertrude, as did Andrew Scott’s in the 2017 London production by Robert Icke. Thomas Ostermeier’s wild “Hamlet” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last year emphasized Gertrude’s sexuality to an extreme, having her slink and shimmy as though overwhelmed with sexual energy. The text implies that a woman too free with her affections digs her own grave.That includes, of course, Hamlet’s eternally damned love interest, Ophelia (memorialized on my right forearm with a skull and pansy). I used to dismiss her as a frail female stereotype, and have craved a production or adaptation that could give this character agency — any kind of agency — within the space of her grieving, her madness and her death.Kenny Leon’s otherwise underwhelming “Hamlet” at the Delacorte this summer did just that. Solea Pfeiffer played an Ophelia who matched Hamlet in wit and sass, who spoke with a knowingness and rage that lifted the character from her 17th-century home into the present.This duality in Ophelia — between sincerity and performance, raving madness and clear, articulated rage — is welcome. It’s a duality that many directors literalize in their productions overall, some using mirrors as nods to Hamlet’s constant reflections at the expense of action, others turning to hint at the divide between presentation and truth.But as much as “Hamlet” can serve as a character study, for me the story extends far beyond a production’s conceptualization of a lost prince with a splintered ego. This is a story that begins and ends with grief.I have a tattoo for Hamlet and his dear, departed father — a jeweled sword piercing a cracked skull in a crown. Having lost my dad almost a decade ago, I’m familiar with the feeling of being haunted by a father who may not be a literal king but perhaps just a patriarch taking the same cheap shots from the afterlife, like Pap in James Ijames’s “Fat Ham.” In the play, a Black, queer take on “Hamlet” in conversation with Shakespeare’s original text, Hamlet is not just tied to his father through a sense of filial obligation but also through guilt, regret, shame. In Pap I saw my own father’s flaws — the spite, the prejudice, the toxic masculinity. It made me wonder how much of Hamlet’s grief is for his father, and how much for the stability his father symbolized.Lately I’ve been listening with more regularity to Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” monologue, that great conference with death that feels as germane to the English language — our rhetoric, our poetry, our elocution, our linguistic imagination — as soil to the Earth. In the span of about a week this summer, I lost a grandmother, and a dear friend shared that his cancer had returned. Having buried both her parents in the past two years, my mother has been talking more about funeral arrangements and where our family would like to spend our post-mortem days. I, on the other hand, take less stock in the expensive ceremonies and planning around death. I don’t plan to make a show of my finale; like Hamlet, I wonder what it will even mean — in that everlasting sleep, who knows what dreams will come?I didn’t fall in love with “Hamlet” because of its action and intrigue; I love the play because it lets me reconnect with the spaces where death has brushed my life. “Hamlet” helps me sit with my own existential fears, all packaged in words of wit and elegance. Because I’m convinced now that if you let Shakespeare in, his voice becomes the one bellowing from the backstage of your life. More

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      in Television

      In ‘Litvinenko,’ a Former Russian Spy Investigates His Own Murder

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      A new dramatization of the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko shows the former spy, played by David Tennant, helping the police in his final hours.LONDON — In the middle of AMC+’s new dramatization of the poisoning of the intelligence agent Alexander V. Litvinenko, a police officer asks a pathologist about the state of the man’s organs when he died. The doctor thinks for a moment, as though considering how graphic to be, and then replies, “Sludge.”It’s a visceral moment in “Litvinenko,” a limited series written by the “Lupin” creator George Kay that depicts Litvinenko’s 2006 poisoning in London via a cup of tea laced with the radioactive element polonium 210, and its aftermath.While many viewers will remember the photo of Litvinenko on his deathbed, gaunt and newly bald, that appeared on front pages around the world, fewer will know the details of his final days, and how — convinced he was poisoned by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — he aided the investigation into the attack, even as his internal organs were failing.The story of a former K.G.B. agent assassinated in broad daylight in the dining room of a British hotel could have made for a sensationalized show about international intrigue. But “Litvinenko,” which comes to AMC+ and Sundance Now on Friday, instead focuses on the human cost behind the headlines.Most of the running time of the series’s four episodes is spent with the police investigating the murder and the Litvinenkos themselves — Alexander (played by David Tennant), but also his widow Marina (Margarita Levieva), who for years agitated for the British government to hold an inquiry into her husband’s death.The police officers investigating the poisoning are featured heavily in the show, including Clive Timmons (Mark Bonnar), center left, and Peter Clarke (Daniel Ryan), second from the left. ITVX/Sundance NowKay’s research for the program involved close collaboration with Marina, as well as the investigating officers, including Brent Hyatt, the London police officer who took 18 hours of statements from Litvinenko in the hospital.That was one way the murder investigation started before anyone had “actually died,” as one of the show’s police officers notes. Litvinenko used the hours it took for the poison to wreck his body “to tell the police what he knew, so he was not just a witness to his own murder, he was a detective in it,” Kay said in a video interview.The first episode covers this time immediately following the poisoning, when every minute was precious. The second shows the weeks following Litvinenko’s death, when the police scrambled to put the pieces together and contain the threat of radiation poisoning to the British public.The subsequent episodes cover the months, and eventually years, that Marina spent fighting for an inquest, and then a public inquiry, into her husband’s death.“We wanted to give a sense of the perseverance of Marina Litvinenko,” Kay said. “She’s the one person who didn’t retire or give up or look the other way, or try and get in the way of the justice. She kept going, and it took her a decade in the end.”“I want people to understand not only what happened to me, to my family, but why it’s happened now to many families,” said Marina Litvinenko, played in the show by Margarita Levieva.ITVX/Sundance NowIn many ways, Marina is the show’s lead character. The widow said she saw cooperating with the show’s creators as her duty.“I want people to understand not only what happened to me, to my family, but why it’s happened now to many families,” she said. Putin’s actions since 2006, including the war in Ukraine, have cost “millions” of people their loved ones, she added.A 2019 play about Litvinenko’s murder, “A Very Expensive Poison,” was written by Lucy Prebble with input from Marina, and there was also a 2021 opera. But this television show arrives after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and so in a changed political landscape.Tennant said that the brutal war had been “the moment that the world woke up to Putin, and what he was.” He added: “I think either people didn’t really understand that until now, or they understood it, but it was inconvenient to acknowledge.”In 2006, Britain saw Russia as a supposedly friendly power. At the time the British government condemned Russia’s refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi to face trial for the murder in Britain, but in 2013, Home Secretary Theresa May admitted that successive British governments had blocked a public inquiry into the poisoning out of concern for “international relations.”Andrei Lugovoi, whom the British government sought to prosecute for the poisoning, is depicted by Radoslaw Kaim.ITVX/Sundance NowMay eventually agreed to Maria’s long-fought-for public inquiry, which in 2016 found that the poisoning was “probably approved” by Putin.While “Litvinenko” is a show with big political concerns, the persistence of ordinary people is what ultimately motivates it. Tennant said the time he spent with Marina preparing for the role drove that home for him.“The experience of being with her changes it from a story about politics to a story about a family,” he said.Kay also wanted to emphasize Litvinenko’s home life in the show. He “worked in Russian intelligence, but also he loved football and swimming, he was a dad, he got the tube home,” Kay said. “He lives a normal life in all but some aspects of his previous work. And it’s the same with Brent Hyatt.”Hyatt’s home life during the investigation, particularly his struggle to conceive a child with his wife, is brought to the forefront in “Litvinenko.” The show depicts both Hyatt (Neil Maskell) and Litvinenko trying to provide for their families in extraordinary circumstances. In the first episode, before Litvinenko is poisoned, we see his family having dinner and discussing his son’s school homework.“It’s very important to look at the human side of any event,” Marina said. The episodes highlight the work of all the ordinary people who helped her in her pursuit for justice, which was not just motivated by the political import of her husband’s work, but also by her devotion to him as a wife.“I think for some people, it will be a love story,” she said. “When, if you have a real love, you never give up.” More