Act III, Scene 1, Prince Hamlet is alone. "To be, or not to bewhat the hell?" he intoned.
This was the new Hamlet of Franco Zeffirelli. Last year, in a choreography of flashing swords held like switchblades, the 28-year-old Italian director caused a transatlantic sensation by staging the Old Vic's final Romeo and Juliet as if it were an adaptation of West Side Story. This year, in a production that has become a Roman sellout, he has excised most of the melancholia from the melancholy Dane, replacing it with angry young slang and...
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