Although we’re used to seeing Hamlet being portrayed by actors under forty — all the better to capture the Prince of Denmark’s youthful indecisiveness — Paul Giamatti will make his debut in the role during the 2012-2013 season of the Yale Repertory Theater. Giamatti will be forty-five by the time the play begins its March 2013 run.
An acclaimed actor like Giamatti — who has been nominated for an Oscar and was awarded an Emmy for his starring role in the John Adams mini-series — doesn’t have extensive Shakespearean experience, but the actor is, in a sense, returning to his roots.
After all, Giamatti has a long association with Yale: not only is he an alumnus of Yale’s drama school, but his father, A. Bartlett Giamatti, was president of the university.
Giamatti’s Hamlet will be directed by the Yale Repertory Theater artistic director and Yale School of Drama dean James Bund, and the play will run from March 15 to April 13, 2012.
Other productions that will appear during Yale’s 2012-2013 season include world premieres of Marie Antoinette by David Adjmi and Dear Elizabeth by Sarah Ruhl, and a new adaptation of the 1978 German film In a Year with 13 Moons. The season will begin in September with American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose, written by Richard Montoya.
