%20in%20Hamlet%20at%20the%20National%20Theatre.%20(c)%20Sam%20Taylor%2022.jpg)
“New York,” says British theater director Robert Hastie, “isn’t one city. It’s many cities superimposed on top of each other. That’s as true in theater as it is in every other area of experience.”
Hastie would know. It’s late March as we speak, and he has just returned to England after ushering in a new cast for his Olivier Award–winning Operation Mincemeat on Broadway. He’ll be back in New York before long, however—this time in Fort Greene, Brooklyn—as the April 26 premiere of his modern-dress production of Hamlet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music draws near.
Originally staged in 2025 by the National Theatre in London, where Hastie is deputy artistic director, his Hamlet follows some 20 other productions of the play mounted at BAM since it opened in 1861. At its center is a Danish prince revitalized by the disarming immediacy that 40-year-old Sri Lankan actor Hiran Abeysekera brings to the title role. (Abeysekera’s breakout came with his turn as Pi Patel in the 2022 West End production of Life of Pi, which subsequently transferred to Broadway and earned him a Theatre World Award.)
Visually, we have costume and stage designer Ben Stones to thank for the production’s sleek, modern look—this Hamlet dons a slutty little earring and manically swigs from a bottle of Dom Pérignon as his courtiers tell him of their encounter with the late king’s ghost—but more than that, Abeysekera inhabits the role with an emotional resonance that kept an audience of nearly 1,000 hanging on his every word in London.
%2520and%2520Alistair%2520Petrie%2520(Claudius)%2520in%2520Hamlet%2520at%2520the%2520National%2520Theatre.%2520(c)%2520Sam%2520Taylor%252097.jpg)
“He doesn’t look like any of the Hamlets we’ve had before, and that’s not just about his ethnicity,” says Hastie. “He has a playful—sometimes confrontational, sometimes threatening, often mischievous—but always direct and sympathetic connection with an audience.”
Offstage, the actor is soft-spoken, gracious, and slightly in awe of the task before him as he prepares to reprise the role for Hamlet’s monthlong run at BAM. “This play is so up to the audience,” he says. “I want to see what New York will bring to my performance.”
In the midst of a rigorous rehearsal schedule for the National’s upcoming fall run of The Jungle Book, Abeysekera spoke with Vogue about the quirks of New York City’s theater crowd, the weight of the Shakespearean prince’s crown, and what it means to find belonging within Britain and beyond.
Vogue: Do you remember the day you were first asked to take on the role of Hamlet?
Hiran Abeysekera: Rob [Hastie] messaged me, asking if I would like to come for a coffee. We sat outside the Understudy on the South Bank of the Thames, and he said that he was going to come and join Indhu [Rubasingham, artistic director of the National]. I asked him what he’d like to do, and he said that he’d like to do Hamlet with me. He just dropped it—he said, “What do you say?”
What was it like, hearing that from the incoming associate artistic director of the National?
I’m so grateful for what Indhu and Rob are doing with me, because I feel like, with roles like Hamlet and then The Jungle Book, there is this belief that they’re putting in me, and that’s making me feel much stronger and capable of these things. I have such self-doubt, and when people like Indhu and Rob put their belief in me—I’m hugely grateful for that.
Now you’re reprising the role and bringing it to New York. Are you preparing for it any differently than when you first performed it in London?
It’ll be a different audience. This play is so dependent on the audience and what their vibe is. I want to see what New York will bring to my performance. With the soliloquies, I’ve been trying to really connect with the audience and really speak to them—rather than it being a performance of verse, having it be questions asked of, and figured out with, the audience. When I was doing Life of Pi, I felt that they were much more engaged and much more vocal about their feelings as the play was going on, and I wonder what will happen with this. At the end of the [London] run, I was feeling excited about it, but I think, after a break, I’m feeling a bit nervous again!
Where do you think that’s coming from?
I think I may have taken for granted the size of Hamlet and what it means to perform it at the National. I think I may have underestimated the impact that it would have and the weight of it all. Now that I have done it, I know what it is, and it probably won’t be the same, but I’m a bit apprehensive about revisiting it again. I feel like I’ve done it, and it was a difficult task. Even though I enjoyed it and I loved it, there was a pressure that I didn’t fully understand until it was over.
There’s a real physicality and emotional depth to your Hamlet. Have you thought about the relationship between his self-expression and the constraints of masculinity within his role at court?
He is very open with the audience, isn’t he? He tells them everything. I have wondered what they are to him—the audience—why he feels comfortable telling them so much. I think it’s a survival tactic, right? If he doesn’t speak about it with the audience, he’ll probably explode with all that is going on. So there is a sense of desperation, and also a sense of relief that they are there to hear his thoughts and feelings. We tried to find this relationship with them as if they were his friend. But then, throughout the play, certain interactions change. At one point, when he thinks the audience is on his side and they don’t reply to him the way he wants, he suddenly goes, “Oh, maybe there falls, too, their friendship.”
%2520in%2520rehearsals%2520for%2520Hamlet%2520at%2520the%2520National%2520Theatre.%2520(c)%2520Sam%2520Taylor%252015.jpg)
We see, on stage, a sliver of just how much this role demands from you. How do you take care of yourself between performances?
In London, I’m lucky to be living in a very lovely household with family and friends, and so coming back home is always quite relaxing. Sometimes I feel like I do it properly, but sometimes I think I don’t. I take care of my body by doing calisthenics and running and jumping about. I like climbings trees, too, which a lot of people in the West find odd, but it’s how I grew up in Sri Lanka. That feels liberating and good for my body, but for my mind, I grew up Buddhist and there are certain sutras that make me feel calm. Reciting them means I have to get my mind to focus, so that’s a form of meditation.
You’ve also spoken in previous interviews about not feeling a sense of belonging within Britain. How has that relationship evolved as you’ve started working abroad more?
It’s not in the British theater scene where I feel like I don’t belong—it’s the country itself. I’m on the global talent visa that has criteria that says I can’t be out of the country for more than 180 days in any given year within five years. And I have been out of the country for work—work that pays into the tax system and into the country, work that actually brings money and prestige back to Britain and makes a contribution to the art scene—but that’s taken as a negative. And even though I’ve been living here for close to 20 years, I still can’t apply for citizenship. That’s why, in that legal sense, every five years, I am reminded that I don’t fully belong here. But in the British art scene, the theater scene, I feel like I do. It’s due to the love that I’ve been getting from everyone.