Drama Review: Though This Be Madness, Yet There Is Method In It

"Eddie Izzard Performing Hamlet," Montalbán Theatre, Los Angeles, Jan. 22 -31, 2026

January 26, 2026 | By Bruce R. Feldman

In Brief: Eddie Izzard essays some 30 characters in Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. What could have come off as a stunt is instead a remarkable display of breathtaking virtuosity that honors and illuminates the familiar text.

Eddie Izzard in her solo Hamlet.

After touring to rave reviews, the trans British actor and comedian Eddie Izzard has brought her one-person version of Hamlet to the Montalbán Theatre in Los Angeles for a brief run through January 31.

A two and one-half-hour drama in which a solo actor plays all the parts feels like the epitome of audacity. Fortunately, Izzard is marvelous, giving a knock-out performance in a production whose reductive qualities serve both to enthrall and to clarify the play’s poetry, pageantry, and subtext.

The challenges of pulling this off are formidable.

The first is, of course, to be sure that the audience knows which character is speaking. Izzard accomplishes this by employing subtle shifts in voice, posture, facial expression, and movement to distinguish each personality.

Importantly, she doesn’t overstate, as a comedian might be tempted to do. Rather, the changes are nuanced, carefully modulated, just enough to let us know who’s at bat without appearing so noticeable as to divert our attention away from the narrative or its emotional power.

Beyond that, it’s impressive to see how Izzard handles transitions – usually by quickly turning away from the audience and then snapping back or by walking purposefully to the opposite side of the stage – or how she skillfully manages other signature moments, including sword fights, murders, ghosts, and crowd scenes.

The actor also intentionally breaks the fourth wall, often addressing the audience directly, as, she tells us in her generous warm up speech before the play starts, would have been the experience during Shakespeare’s day. The crowd and players were one (a point the creators of the new film Hamnet also assert).

Izzard makes the complex look simple. Her "Hamlet" is a triumph.

Izzard has said that as a trans actor she wanted to pay particular attention to amplifying the women’s roles. Her delivery of Ophelia’s mad scene – a monologue she sings in a beautiful, mournful voice – is especially tender and haunting.

Izzard’s work benefits from the elegant, restrained proportions of Tom Piper’s minimalist set that, while modest, fills the Montalbán stage and offers a surprise reveal at the very last moment.

Tyler Elich’s judicious lighting affords just enough punctuation at key moments to heighten the action and mood.

Piper and costume stylist Libby da Costa created an arresting, sexy black on black doublet for Izzard to wear throughout. It’s a retro riff on Elizabethan style by way of the mod 1960s. Izzard looks great in it.

All in all, this Hamlet is a triumph.

The actor, play adapter Mark Izzard, and director Selina Cadell have figured out how to make the complex look simple.

The result is seamless artistry, free from inessential adornment, that allows us to focus on Shakespeare’s glorious prose and the dramatic tension and psychological undercurrents that drive his story to its unforgettable conclusion.

That’s something we hope for and don’t always get in any new reiteration of Hamlet.

In her astonishing tour de force, Eddie Izzard shows that she has the talent, technique, and chutzpah to fulfill our expectations.

Brava!

“Eddie Izzard Performing Hamlet,” Montalbán Theatre, 1615 Vine St. Los Angeles, 90028, (323) 461-6999, themontalban.com