The Making of a Successful Hamlet

Last night I had the pleasure of taking in a performance of Hamlet at the main Festival Theater at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. There is a lot that can be said about the production, much of it positive, and a few things negative, and taken on the whole it was a fine theatrical experience. Rather than dally too long on the particulars that displeased me [1], I thought it would be better to meditate, for a while, on what goes into the successful execution of Hamlet as a role. Because whatever else may be good or bad in a production of Hamlet is going to ride or die on the performance of the actor playing the prince. So what is it that makes a performance successful?