Michael Braugher, left, gets in character for the Guthrie’s “Hamlet” with the help of director Joseph Haj. (Guthrie Theater/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

You could argue that Michael Braugher, who opens Friday in the Guthrie Theater's "Hamlet," has been preparing for the title role since his junior year of prep school.

Braugher, who calls New Jersey home, was assigned a 15-page paper about "Hamlet," William Shakespeare's tragedy about a Danish prince grieving his father's murder. At the time, Braugher wasn't planning to act. In fact, he rebelled against what could be thought of as the family business (his parents, Ami Brabson and Emmy Award winner Andre Braugher, are actors). But when he got into the Juilliard School at 24, he realized he had a future as an actor, which has included a 2021 Broadway debut in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Braugher, 30, is the Guthrie's sixth Hamlet (in addition to five home-grown productions, Simon Russell Beale appeared in a Royal National Theatre tour in 2001). It's good company. Three Guthrie Hamlets have won Tony Awards: George Grizzard, for "A Delicate Balance" in 1996, Santino Fontana, for "Tootsie" in 2019 and Beale for last year's "The Lehman Trilogy." Željko Ivanek, who starred opposite Julianne Moore as Ophelia, earned an Emmy for "Damages" in 2008. Randall Duk Kim co-founded Wisconsin's American Players Theatre and appeared in the third "John Wick" film.

To develop his Hamlet, Braugher had to forget all of that.

"I want the audience to come away having been moved by whatever my version and our cast's version and Joe Haj, the director's version, of this story is, as opposed to the lore," he said.

Speaking by phone during a break from rehearsals at the Guthrie, he compared his character's journey to a speeding train.

"He has this desperation to find an answer and that desperation is manifested in my performance as quite frantic and fairly high-energy," said Braugher. "His thought is so rapid-fire."

That approach should set him apart from the other men who would be Hamlet at the Guthrie, which celebrates its 60th anniversary next month:

George Grizzard (1963) — Fresh off Broadway's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," he joined the Guthrie's inaugural company along with Jessica Tandy, who played Gertrude opposite Grizzard as her mercurial son. "People thought I was nuts" to leave New York, he told the Star Tribune when he returned in 2006 for the opening of the present location. "The people of Minneapolis were so wonderful and so invested in it. The waitresses and cabdrivers all had their season tickets."
Randall Duk Kim (1978) — The word "intense" pops up a lot in descriptions of the Korean American actor's take. The Minneapolis Tribune's Mike Steele thought he was too chilly. The Star's Don Morrison said, "I'm happy to see lain to rest the long-prevailing image of Hamlet as a nail-biting, vacillating wimp, but I cannot quite grasp this opposite extreme — dynamic, head-knocking executive."
Željko Ivanek (1988) — Director Garland Wright told Steele that the actor was central to his vision. Ivanek, who spent weeks debating whether he was ready for the part, wasn't so sure. Those doubts colored Ivanek's interpretation: "He's unprepared at the beginning of the play and forced to mature quickly. He's a student thrust into a horrible situation. His father has been murdered. His mother has instantly remarried. As a young man, he faces the fact that his mother is still attractive, still sexy: 'Say it isn't so.' It's shocking to him."
Simon Russell Beale (2001) — "He has his moments of viciousness, but I am very keen that he be a sweet Hamlet," Beale told the Star Tribune's Rohan Preston. His Dane was an average person, weighed down by grief. Beale's unconventional interpretation earned a nomination for an Olivier Award, the British equivalent of the Tony.
Santino Fontana (2006) — Before playing the melancholy Dane, the actor met Ivanek and received the gift of a rare edition of Shakespeare's plays from Grizzard. A graduate of the Guthrie's bachelor of fine arts program, Fontana told Preston that he took a literary approach: "There are words that come up over and again, like to/too/two, that show his state of mind. That sound — 'two months dead,' 'to be or not to be,' 'to suffer' — shows that he keeps trying to find the verb. Then 'to/too/two' becomes 'do/dew.' He is no longer searching and knows what he needs to do. That shift in language helps tell me his shift as a person."
Michael Braugher (2023) — He thinks the "To be or not to be" speech fools us into thinking Hamlet is — as they say in Texas — all hat, no cowboy. "He might get lost on the way, but he is trying to achieve a goal and his inability to go through with what most people would consider a horrible act, murder, is actually the thing that audiences resonate with," said Braugher. "It's a very front-footed play, a very front-footed character and he's driving toward a goal the entire night, as opposed to wallowing in self-pity."

'Hamlet'

Who: By William Shakespeare. Directed by Joseph Haj.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 1 and 7 p.m. Sun. Ends May 21.

Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 S. 2nd St., Mpls.

Protocol: Masks required for April 16 matinee.

Tickets: $20-$79, 612-377-2224 or guthrietheater.org.

about the writer

Chris Hewitt

Critic / Editor

Interim books editor Chris Hewitt previously worked at the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, where he wrote about movies and theater.