SOURCE: Isherwood, Charles. “A Pacifist Prince in Brits' Latest Hamlet.” Variety 383, no. 3 (4 June 2001): 24.

In the following review, Isherwood compares John Caird's Royal National Theater production of Hamlet to Peter Brooks's production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, remarking that while Brooks's shortened version of the play lacked emotion, Caird's lacked credibility. Isherwood notes that although Simon Russell Beale's performance in Caird's production was conscientious, the actor was too overweight and somber to make a convincing Hamlet.

The strongest argument in favor of Peter Brook's Hamlet, seen recently at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, may well be John Caird's Hamlet, now stopping at the same venue for a brief run at the end of a national tour.

Brook's version pared the text down to a smart, streamlined and thoroughly dry 2 1/2 hours. Caird's Hamlet, for London's Royal National Theater, is an hour longer but rarely more emotionally engaging. Life is...