Oscar Isaac's 'Hamlet' Makes Contentious Organizational Switch

In an unprecedented theater move, director Sam Gold has pulled his Oscar Isaac-starring production of Hamlet from New York's Theater for a New Audience and moved it to Public Theater. Gold cited overwhelming artistic differences as reason for the switch.

As previously reported on our sister site Classicalite, the new staging of William Shakespeare's famous tragedy was set to open at TNA's Polonsky Shakespeare Center in June of next year. In the controversial swap, director Gold has completely pulled out of his deal with TNA, taking his Star Wars: The Force Awakens lead, Isaac, with him. Gold now plans to produce Hamlet with Public Theater.

In today's New York Times, TNA's artistic director Jeffrey Horowitz commented on the dispute by highlighting the crooked criterion the reversal sets for non-for-profit theater:

"It's a bad precedent for not-for-profits," Mr. Horowitz said of the play's cancellation. "Creative artists should not take a production away. It hurts the field if that kind of thing can happen."

Per Broadway World, the theatrical conflict originated with Mr. Gold's interpretation of the text:

"As a rule, Theater for a New Audience does not produce adaptations of Shakespeare. The Times writes that at the beginning of June, dramaturge Jonathan Kalb, whose job it was to oversea Gold's interpretation of the play, 'raised questions of how and when Gold planned to do his work on the text, whether he understood that Jeffrey would want to be consulted.'"

During the vexed tête-à-tête, arrangements were conceived for the play to be co-produced by both theater companies -- at the very least, to have seats at the Public Theater production set aside for TNA's subscribers. Negotiations eventually broke down and all hopes for a theatrical treaty were lost.

Gold told Horowitz he wouldn't be helming the TNA production of Hamlet at the end of June. For now, TNA has scheduled a production of Simon Godwin's Measure for Measure in its place.

Watch Oscar Isaac sing and play guitar in a GQ piece below.

We want to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the Hamlet switch in the comments.

TagsHamlet, Oscar Isaac, William Shakespeare, Theater for a New Audience, Sam Gold, Public Theater