To be or not to be alone: A visceral, high-stakes ‘Hamlet’ comes to Brooklyn

Operation Mincemeat director Robert Hastie and stars Hiran Abeysekara and Francesca Mills discuss redefining Shakespeare’s tragedy for a surveillance-heavy world.

Summary

• Director Robert Hastie's acclaimed production of Hamlet comes from London to the Brooklyn Academy of Music off Broadway from April 26 to May 17
• Hastie and actors Hiran Abeysekara and Francesca Mills discuss the production that focuses on the idea of surveillance; subterfuge; and the idea that the characters are never alone
• Shakespeare's famous tragedy follows a young prince plotting revenge on his murderous uncle who's usurped the throne

The corridors of power will soon shift from the U.K. to Brooklyn as Robert Hastie’s acclaimed production of Hamlet arrives at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater from April 26 to May 17. This staging was originally developed at London’s National Theatre, and Hiran Abeysekara and Francesca Mills reprise the lead roles they originated across the pond in 2025.

The NYC transfer marks a meeting of major talents: Hastie returns to the director’s chair after staging the hit musical Operation Mincemeat to massive success in London and on Broadway. Meanwhile, Abeysekara is celebrated for his Olivier Award-winning performance in Life of Pi, a role he reprised for the play’s Broadway run. Joining Hastie and Abeysekara is Francesca Mills, an Ian Charleson Award winner acclaimed for her performance as Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Written by William Shakespeare around 1600 and first performed at the turn of the 17th century, Hamlet is one of literature’s most enduring tragedies. The title character (Abeysekara), the young Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his uncle on the throne, sparking a profound meditation on revenge, grief, and the weight of conscience. Also at the center of this turmoil is Ophelia (Mills), a young noblewoman caught between her loyalty to her family and her love for the increasingly volatile Hamlet. In Hastie’s version, this classic tale of domestic betrayal is heightened by an environment where every whisper is a liability and no room is truly secure.

Building a cast at "the speed of thought"

The impetus for Hastie's production was the electric potential of a specific performer. “This is going to embarrass him, but it’s Hiran, really,” the director said of his leading man. “I think you can’t really do Hamlet without knowing who your Hamlet is.” Abeysekara was the only actor Hastie envisioned for the role when the National Theatre first approached him to stage the play. “The reason I always thought he would be an exciting Hamlet is because of performances I’d seen him give where his relationship with the audience was so immediate and direct, and playful, and mischievous, and dangerous,” Hastie observed.

Abeysekara felt the weight of that responsibility early on, noting that the role began to permeate his own reality. “Starting Hamlet during that time, it started to really affect me in various ways of my mind and my life,” Abeysekara said. He found a vital partner in Hastie, who provided the safety to explore such a volatile character. “There’s a lot of love in his heart, and I feel comfortable with him to try things out and fail, and not worry about it because I know that he’d be there," Abeysekara added.

This culture of trust was equally essential for Mills, who described a rehearsal room where she was encouraged to experiment with the character’s agency. “He’s like, ‘You’ve got a chef’s hat. Now, what do you want to cook up?’” Mills said of Hastie’s directing style.

This freedom allowed her to move past traditional interpretations of a tragic, passive Ophelia. “I tried to start her energy really high, rather than start her down and only have a little bit of room to grow,” Mills explained, adding that her Ophelia had to possess the steel to match Hamlet’s intellect. “You had to show her quickness and her wickedness to be able to keep up with such a wordsmith as Hamlet.”

Hastie recalled the fastest audition in history when he met Mills at an awards ceremony and asked what Shakespeare she’d like to do. “Quick as a flash, she said she really wanted to do a turn in Hamlet,” Hastie recalled.

A world without privacy

Shakespeare’s text is famously filled with eavesdropping and observation, and Hastie's staging leans into the idea that, in a world defined by subterfuge, these characters are never truly alone. Every interaction becomes a public performance or a potential trap, a reality that's equally dangerous for Hamlet and Ophelia.

Though this Hamlet leans heavily into a spy culture that mirrors our own always-on society, Hastie avoids clichés like CCTV cameras and flickering screens. Instead, he focuses on the human cost of living without privacy.

“I wanted to explore [...] the more immediate, human, analog version of that and to create a world in which there are potentially people listening around corners and in rooms, and in corridors, and in doorways,” Hastie explained. “What is it like to feel that [Hamlet] can’t trust a private space? And that feels like a very real thing that young people today are affected by, the inability to have a truly private space because your life is being lived and curated in public.”

Global consequences, personal stakes

The jump from individual privacy to international peril is a short one in this version. While the production remains anchored in the “messy story of a family falling apart,” Hastie said, it refuses to ignore the looming threat of a neighboring invasion, a plot point often cut in other stagings.

For the director, these broader stakes are a vital reminder “that the actions of individuals have global impact, and in particular, the personal relationships that are happening in the corridors of power have consequences for the lives of the people in the countries that they’re at the top of.” He viewed these background political events as a “constant reminder, like rolling news, that there are global consequences to the domestic drama that’s playing out,” Hastie said.

As the cast prepares for the Brooklyn premiere, Abeysekara reflected on how the production has deepened since its initial London run. With Shakespeare’s language now second nature to the actors, their delivery has moved away from the feeling of a distant classical text and into something more immediate. The speed and intensity of the performance allows the dialogue to unfold with the urgency of a real-time emergency.

“The speed of thought in this production really comes directly from the text,” Abeysekara said. “There is still so much to be discovered within Hamlet’s world. To be honest, I think playing this part will begin a lifetime of discovery.”

Ultimately, the team hopes New York audiences will leave the theatre feeling the deep bond shared by their ensemble. Hastie summed up the humanistic goal of this staging: “I hope they’ll come away feeling like they’ve met and got to care for a group of real people expressing themselves in timeless language.”

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Photo credit: Hamlet in London. (Photos by Sam Taylor)