Learning never ends.

Saw Suzy Eddie Izzard's one-woman Hamlet at the STC (hosting the DC stop on her international tour), which really was a remarkable piece of theater— just watching anyone recite the entirety of Hamlet basically without pausing for breath would be impressive in itself, but this was, in fact, genuinely a really good performance of Hamlet. Given her comedy background, it's unsurprising she killed it at the more comedic parts— Polonius, the gravediggers, Hamlet's mad scenes; for 90% of the characters, she literally moved from place to place around the stage to embody each different role, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were mimed as hand puppets, which got a big laugh every time— but as she explained in a pre-show introduction, as Shakespeare progressed from comedy to tragedy through his career, so has she (and "if you're expecting a comedy version of Hamlet, you are going to be sorely disappointed"), and her dramatic turns were equally compelling. This production (understandably!) trimmed the script a little, but did keep in the entirety of the Norway subplot, which is usually the first thing to get cut, so that was an interesting touch. The set was, basically, a white box— a sort of stage-within-the-stage, she mostly performed within the box but stepped out/in front of it, to the "real" stage, to deliver soliloquies* directly to the audience**— and there were no props, only the occasional miming of interacting with things: there was scattered laughter the first time, when her Hamlet mimed pulling his sword for Horatio to swear on, but let me tell you, you know that an audience has been enraptured when when miming Hamlet licking Polonius' blood off of his hands elicits a collective gasp.

* Hamlet's, obviously, but also as Ophelia and Gertrude, which I don't think I've seen other productions emphasize as such?

** In a fun fourth-wall-breaking moment, Hamlet addressed the audience as if they were the players in Act 2, Scene 2— I've seen another production use that scene to break the fourth wall by having Hamlet direct his "keep an eye on the king" instructions to the audience instead of to Horatio, so I thought that was a fun touch.