Whether or not you like Shakespeare, you have to admit the guy was a genius. He wrote plays that somehow transcended time and still stayed relevant to modern audiences, and Hamlet is no different. Out of all the Shakespeare I’ve ever read, this play is easily my favorite. It has everything – tragedy, ghosts, friendship, romance, humor, and some wickedly good insults. Seriously, those comebacks are pure genius.

But with so many different performances over literally centuries, trying to come up with something that’s both engaging to a modern audience and satisfying to the stalwart Shakespearean purist seems virtually impossible. Hamlet is something that seemingly every important British actor has tackled at least once. The character itself is so rich, and the play brings up so many questions that nobody can ever really answer. This production managed to do this justice, and to bring something new to the role of Hamlet. That’s simply amazing to me. The staging brought an almost Gothic horror element to it, with the dark set, reverberating sound effects, and ghostly lighting. This contrasted beautifully with the modern clothing and apocalyptic destruction of the scenery in the second act to bring out the timeless quality of the play. And of course, the cast. The actors and actresses themselves brought the play to life, each with some new insight into their character that made an age-old play a modern masterpiece.