SHAKESPEARE’S NAME,
SOMEONE ELSE’S STORY

A generic weepie that gloms onto the prestige of Shakespeare
while offering nothing of substance in return

  Rory Alexander and Kemi-Bo Jacobs as William and Agnes Shakespeare

Let’s start with a simple exercise: If you were to replace the name “Will,” as in William Shakespeare, with a random name—say, Robert, stipulating that Robert is any Elizabethan playwright—how far would you be able to get through Hamnet’s two and a half hours without having to make major changes to the script?

Kemi-Bo Jacobs as Agnes, with Rory Alexander as William,

The U.S. premiere of Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel arrives at Chicago Shakespeare Theater with considerable fanfare. In the late 1500s, a teenaged Latin tutor named Will falls madly in love with a free-spirited herbalist, Agnes (the “g” is silent). As headstrong teenagers are wont to do, they succumb to their desires and, to avoid scandal, rush into marriage. Their first child, Susanna, is soon born, and before long Agnes is pregnant again—this time with twins, a girl and a boy: Judith and Hamnet.

Hamnet at Chicago Shakes is one of the most beautifully directed shows I’ve seen in quite some time. Erica Whyman does remarkable work and is aided by a near-flawless production team.

Kemi-Bo Jacobs and Rory Alexander

Tom Piper’s set consists primarily of timber beams, with an elevated attic space at center stage. Characters manipulate pulleys and ladders to shift between playing areas as the script demands, yet the movement never feels anything less than fluid. There is also an elegant transition to the stage of the Old Globe at the end, and with Prema Mehta’s lighting design Piper creates a striking impression of outdoor depth and distance at the rear of the stage. I couldn’t quite determine how the effect was achieved—the scenes were too brief—but I gasped at its beauty each time it appeared.

Rory Alexander

Simon Baker’s sound design is equally effective, particularly in the foreboding scenes with the children, as ghostly whispers fill the auditorium.

Whyman has also assembled a terrific cast led by Kemi-Bo Jacobs as Agnes. Jacobs is the star here and she is superb at every moment: the intense teenager with a gift for herbalism and a love of falconry; the frightened, newly pregnant wife; the grief-stricken mother; and eventually the stoic survivor. There is not a false note in her performance, and whenever she is on stage—which is thankfully most of the time—she is magnetic. I say “thankfully” because not much else is. Hamnet essentially offers one beautifully written character surrounded by a collection of two-dimensional ones, and that includes the character of William Shakespeare.

Kemi-Bo Jacobs as Agnes (center), with Ajani Cabey as Hamnet and Saffron Dey as Judith

The rest of the cast does admirable work with what they are given. Rory Alexander, as Shakespeare, shares an appealing chemistry with Jacobs, and the play suffers whenever the two characters are separated—which, unfortunately, is most of the time. Penny Layden somehow turns Mary Shakespeare into a fully realized figure. None of the actors are weak, but there is only so much anyone can do with characters this thinly drawn. The younger female characters in the first act are largely interchangeable, while the older characters are assigned a single trait each: shrew, domineering brute, stoic, and so on.

Saffron Dey as Judith and Ajani Cabey as Hamnet

The play improves somewhat in the second act—note how much livelier the ensemble becomes when portraying members of the King’s Players and characters from Shakespeare’s plays—but this is also where Hamnet fully shifts into exploitation mode. It is entirely possible to create a thoughtful, devastating drama about the death of a child—David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole immediately comes to mind—but Hamnet shows little interest in exploring grief with that kind of depth. Hamnet’s death is foreshadowed from the very beginning, and periodic interruptions remind the audience that tragedy is inevitable. The first 80 to 90 minutes function largely as prologue to that moment, with only Agnes and Mary Shakespeare showing any meaningful development.

Heather Forster as Eliza and Kemi-Bo Jacobs as Agnes

Your mileage may vary, but to me Hamnet plays like generic grief-porn dressed up—indeed sold—by piggybacking on William Shakespeare’s name. It is beautifully directed, lit, scored, and performed by a tremendously talented team who have elevated the material as far as possible. One can only hope their next projects will be more deserving of their gifts.

And the answer to the question that opened this review? By my count, with a random name substituted for Shakespeare’s, you could make it through nearly two hours of Hamnet with only minor edits—removing just a few minutes of stage action.

Kemi-Bo Jacobs

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photos by Kyle Flubacker

Hamnet
US tour
Royal Shakespeare Company and Neal Street Productions
Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s The Yard
2 hours 30 minutes, one intermission
ends on March 8, 2026
for tickets (starting at $58), visit Chicago Shakes

for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago

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