Enough already with the fat, bearded, balding guys playing Hamlet! The Prince of Denmark is twenty or so years old. While we certainly understand that anyone cast in the role–perhaps the most storied in all of English-language theater–should have something of a track record, Hamlet just doesn’t work when its titular character is middle-aged and sporting a pronounced paunch. Enter Santino Fontana, the twenty-three-year-old who’s been cast in the role for the Guthrie’s book-ending production at its Vineland Place theater. Not only is Fontana young enough to meet whatever romanticized notions we have about the role, but he’s also got actor-ly cred. Just two years out of college (he’s a graduate of the Guthrie Theater/University of Minnesota B.F.A. program), Fontana already has appeared in Guthrie productions of Six Degrees of Separation, Death of a Salesman, and As You Like It. Of course, Hamlet will expose and test him in an entirely different way. We caught up with Fontana to gauge his thoughts and fears about the role.
hat was your first encounter with this play?
I hadn’t read it, really, until my first year of college, which is sad. It was the year 2000, and Simon Russell Beale’s tour came through. [Beale arrived by way of London’s Royal National Theater’s touring production.] We studied the play in preparation for the show.
In that production, Beale seemed far too old to pull off Prince Hamlet. Where do you put Hamlet’s age?
Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? I think it depends upon which text you’re reading. We know that the actor who originally played him was well into his thirties. In most modern editions, there’s a line in the play that makes it sound like he’s thirty years old. But the word “youth” or “young” is used so much in the play. And when Shakespeare wrote this, if this man was a prince and thirty and unmarried and still in college, something was terribly wrong. What we’re going with is that he’s twenty-three, twenty-two, twenty-one. He’s a kid off at school. He heard about his dad dying and had to come home.
Who is the oldest guy you’ve ever seen play Hamlet?
He [Beale] was it, to be honest. John Gielgud played it, what, three times, four times? The last time he played it he was in his forties, and I think he even said he was too old.
So how terrified are you?
Um, well, I mean… There was a guy in London who was twenty-three. And at the time, that was two or three years ago, he was believed to be the youngest to professionally play Hamlet. So I’m not alone. But, of course, it’s frightening. It’s frightening! It’s frightening! It’s frightening! And I’ve got to get this one right! I don’t want to disappoint this director, this audience, this theater community that’s been so good to me. I’m finding a lot of inspiration in the character. I mean, being told by a ghost you need to avenge your father’s death? He’s not there yet. He’s not ready. [Director Joe Dowling] has talked several times about having wanted to pick someone who could capture the insecurities of youth. He couldn’t have picked a more insecure youth.
What about that giant etching on the side of the new Guthrie of George Grizzard, the actor who played Hamlet in the Guthrie’s first-ever production?
How ominous is that? I was touring the new Guthrie and the woman leading the tour pointed up and said, “There’s George Grizzard.” It’s thirty feet high, huge! She just pointed and said, “You’ve got some huge shoes to fill.” And I’m just stuck asking: Me? Are you sure?
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