Shakespeare’s wife is brought out of the shadows in Lolita Chakrabarti’s loving, wistful adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, a lockdown hit that suggested the loss of the couple’s son Hamnet to plague inspired the writing of Hamlet. Erica Whyman’s production, her swansong after a decade with the Royal Shakespeare Company, is initially stiff and slow but weaves a beguiling narrative web around the creation of human life, of art, and of a family unit as a refuge.
Madeleine Mantock’s spirited Anne Hathaway – actually Agnes, pronounced Ann-yes – is in her mid 20s, a seer and a naturopath thought by some to be a witch, when she first meets impecunious teenage Latin teacher William Shakespeare (Tom Varey). They feel a powerful erotic attraction and Agnes has premonitory visions of their children: their first, Susannah, is conceived before they are “handfasted” (pledged); twins Judith and Hamnet after they are married. But Agnes sees only two children in their future…
Life in 16th century Stratford-upon-Avon is evoked through soft Warwickshire accents, domestic routines and working life: Agnes’s hostile stepmother runs her late father’s farm; William’s violent dad is a glover and a wool-thief. William is eventually sent to London to sell gloves and to escape the oppressive household. He’s swaggeringly confident he’ll survive the big city: “I’ve been to Kenilworth!”
There’s a suggestion that he, like Agnes, has a unique ability to connect with and interpret the world, but it only flowers in London. The pace picks up in the second half, with Stratford scenes interspliced with Shakespeare rehearsing with Burbage and Kempe, and fretting that The Comedy of Errors is too complicated and Henry IV “much too long”.
Tom Piper’s blonde-wood set nicely evokes the frame of an Elizabethan rural home and also continues the contours of the Garrick’s balconies, turning it into the “wooden O” of Shakespeare’s original Globe.
Chakrabarti distills the mysticism of O’Farrell’s book and foregrounds Hamnet and Judith, who are given an energetic sibling rapport by Ajani Cabey and Alex Jarrett. Mantock is especially moving in her grief, Varey better earlier on when Shakespeare is just a callow youth than in the glib glimpses of his later writing life: it’s almost impossible to perform such scenes without evoking either Shakespeare in Love or Upstart Crow.
The connection between Hamnet’s death and the creation of Hamlet doesn’t entirely convince, but the way it brings Agnes and Will back together is touchingly done. This is a solid, elegant piece of storytelling that challenges the idea that genius is ever the work of one person alone.
Garrick Theatre, to February 17, buy tickets here. Listen to the Standard Theatre Podcast, where we review the biggest shows every week, here
