(April 2013)
So for all that I was patting myself on the
back about getting the references (well, a reference) last time out, it took me
a worryingly long time to realize that this was pretty much Hamlet with werewolves.
The shtick for the Assassini series, in case you don’t remember, is that it’s is a
riff on various Shakespeare plays with a bit of supernatural jiggery-pokery
thrown in. The man himself wasn’t averse to a bit of that, so it’s fair enough.
After Othello played itself out
halfway through ‘Act Two’, I’d figured we were now heading well off-piste and were
just going to play fast and loose with bits and bobs from The Tempest and Romeo and
Juliet. While that’s true (Giulietta’s escapade with some poison is very
nicely done), I completely missed that when the Moor died the Prince picked up
the story pretty much straight away. Can’t do low-brow, can’t do high-brow, can
dance a little.
Like the source stageplays, Grimwood does
the intimate and personal very well. The politicking, intrigues, and backstabbing
all play out convincingly and compellingly. On the flip side the big set-piece
battle towards the end falls a little flat, to be honest, but he has the sense
to bring it all up close again for the finale with Not Hamlet, “muttering
to himself, a stuttery two-way conversation about how strange life was and how
death was going to be even stranger.” Which you’d realize, if you were paying
greater attention than I was, is really the only way it could have gone.
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