‘Hamlet’ Review: Cush Jumbo Ignites London Production
David Benedict There are two reasons that, among recent Hamlets, Cush Jumbo (“The Good Fight”) is right up there alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen. Like those two actors, Jumbo has dazzling ease on stage as the magnetic, glowing center of “Hamlet.” But frustratingly, also like Cumberbatch and McKellen, the actor is robbed of her full potential in the role by being caught in a flavorless, flaccid production.Encouraged to witness the ghost by Jonathan Livingstone’s Horatio, Jumbo’s first appearance instantly adds vibrancy to designer Anna Fleischle’s steely, oddly colorless stage picture of rectangular, tarnished mirror columns that occasionally revolve yet never charge up the smoky, mostly gloomily lit space.