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He broods, he plots, he ponders, he hates royally, he sneers, he snarls, he mourns, he moans, he gives acting lessons (boy, does he ever!), he woos, he hallucinates, he reads, he rages, he rants, he thrusts, he parries — he really does fence — he mimics, he meditates, he runs, he crumbles and, at the curtain call (there were three), for the first time all night, he flashes that much-underused megawatt smile. The only thing Jude Law didn't do Oct. 6, when he opened at the Broadhurst as Broadway's 66th and latest Hamlet, was talk to the press.

Mind you, he posed obligingly for the paparazzi when he arrived (early and still highly energized) at the after-party held at Gotham Hall, a former bank which, with its stately pillars and massive rotunda, always looks like the scene of the crime in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. He glad-handed his way to the middle of the room, giving and receiving hugs, chatting up this one and that one, fielding compliments like roses tossed at him and finally settling down to a long evening's meal, constantly interrupted by congratulations between bites. It was indeed his party, and he was its epicenter, surrounded by rows of fans at least four deep.

The muzzled press drank in this happy spectacle gratefully. Only a trusted few were invited, and the trust weighed a ton as the evening wore on. It seems that our star is tabloid fodder these days, so, rather than run the risk of any embarrassing questions that could upstage the serious acting that had just taken place, the entire cast was barred from interviews.

It was "the new cast system," and the press played it out as best we could, sometimes finding ourselves in the drink line next to Claudius (Kevin R. McNally) or Polonius (Ron Cook) or watching from afar at Gertrude (Geraldine James) being regaled by a gaggle of friends. Laertes (Gwilym Lee) and Horatio (Matt Ryan) would brush by without a peep from me.

But it was asking too much to find Guildenstern (Harry Attwell) sitting alone at a table and not go by shouting "I thought you were dead!" He smiled and shot a thumb's up. And I did speak with Peter Eyre, a previous Broadway Polonius who, this time out, drew a pair of kings (The Player King and the deceased one) and gave them a plummy accounting. We had met once before when he did Terre Haute Off-Broadway, and we discussed the imminent return to New York from London of a mutual friend, producer Kit Valerie Plaschkes.

Mercifully, the cast ban didn't apply to Michael Grandage, who directed them and, otherwise, is artistic director of London's Donmar Warehouse from whence cometh this Hamlet. "It came together," he said, "as part of the big West End season a year and a half ago when we were planning to take over a West End theatre — the Wyndham — so we were looking for four productions and four leading actors. We were going to do — and did eventually do — them in the West End.

View the Entire Photo Gallery Jude Law Photo by Aubrey Reuben

"It came about because Kenneth Branagh brought Jude to the table. Kenneth Branagh and I worked on Ivanov together, and he was going to direct Jude's Hamlet, but he had to go and do a movie, and I stepped in." A lucky step, that. "Jude is possibly one of the nicest people I have ever directed in my career, one of the truly great people. He's easy to direct. He's easy because he approaches it with such a refreshing attitude: Every single night has to be new. It has to be minted fresh for that audience so, if he gets a very good laugh one night, he doesn't try to recreate it the next. He just goes for whatever is."

Grandage returns to London immediately, leaving the show to run its limited course of 12 weeks. "Actually four of them have already happened, so we've got about seven more weeks left." (It's to close Dec. 6.) Work awaits at the Warehouse: "I'm doing a new play by the American writer, John Logan, called Red. It's about Mark Rothko, the abstract expressionist, and we're doing that at the Donmar with Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne in December."

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Victor Garber, who has had his brushes with Shakespeare ("Lysander and Florizel in my early days, the Scottish king at the Old Globe outside") and is about to start rehearsing Present Laughter for a Roundabout run after the first of the year, contended that you learn something from every Hamlet that you see.

"First of all, tonight, I learned what an unbelievably demanding role that is," Garber remarked, "and I just thought that Jude was exemplary in it. It was really a great performance. It really blew me away. I loved it. Loved it. He was fantastic."

"Fantastic" was also the adjective tossed off by the Donmar's former top-dog, Sam Mendes, but then "we're co-producers — just a small part of it, but I hope people really enjoy it and come see it because Jude's truly amazing."

The Bridge Project, which he started up last year, just finished its two-play world tour and is now readying for a second round: "We're doing The Tempest and As You Like It with Stephen Dillane, who last was here nine years ago, doing The Real Thing and winning the Tony for it. He hasn't been here since. They'll open in January and run till March at BAM, then go around the world. Last year it was Paris, Amsterdam, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong and The Old Vic. 'Join the plays and see the world.' It's less of a job and more of a lifestyle choice."

New to the Donmar Warehouse ranks is Yank director-choreographer Rob Ashford, who just reprised Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown's Parade, his West End hit, for the West Coast. "We just opened on Sunday at the Mark Taper in Los Angeles, and it went really well," he beamed blissfully. "T.R. Knight is terrific in the show. I think one of the reviews today said he was 'astonishing' so that's pretty good. ‘Astonishing' is alright."

And is this a movable feast? "It is. It is. It would be lovely if it came here, but right now we're just happy to get it up there and that it has been so well received." For the present, Ashford has more immediate Broadway plans: "I'm going to be doing this revival of Promises, Promises in January. Sean Hayes has the male lead, and the girl is . . . not quite signed yet, but somebody really good."

Another musical you may be hearing more from is Lucky Guy, a Nashville-set tuner that director-choreographer Warren Carlyle gave a Goodspeed lift-off a few months back with Josh Grisetti, Tony winner Gary Beach and John Bolton. "We're knocking on a few doors to try to get some interest to get it on here," said Willard Beckham, who did the book, music and lyrics. "That's the next step of the journey. We got a standing ovation every single performance the whole month of performances. That's saying something, I think."

Somehow, the celeb tip-sheet for the night led with the name of Will Ferrell. (Of course, he didn't show.) The Post's Cindy Adams positioned herself against a pillar at the Broadhurst's entrance and pelted any celeb who walked by with: "What do you know about Shakespeare?" You could see David Hyde Pierce's mind racing for a funny response. "Well, I know he's dead," he ventured, "but he's baaaack!"

In point of fact, Hyde Pierce was Laertes to Kevin Kline's [first] Hamlet at The Public. "That was a long time ago," he sighed, meaning B.F. (before "Frasier").

Natalie Portman created the most red-carpet commotion, rushing into the theatre unnoticed and, naturally, being very noticed. Also spotted: Barbara Walters (who ankled it after Act I), Barbara Cook with Harvey Evans, playwright John Guare, Aasif Mandvi (of "The Daily Show" and M. Night Shyamalan's next movie, "The Last Airbender"), "Gospel Girl" Brit Ed Westwick (a Jude Law look-and-soundalike) and Rutina Wesley.

In a kind of passing-the-British-torch gesture, Janet McTeer, who last reigned at the Broadhurst as Mary Stuart, was on hand, not doubt observing how well that theatre wears black (another black-rock castle) — and the weather. Whereas Mary Stuart met Elizabeth I in a driving rainstorm on stage, Law delivers his big "to be or not to be" number against a background of gently falling snow.

No stranger to Hamlet, having "represented one of the greatest, Nicol Williamson, and Hume Cronyn who was Polonius in Burton's Hamlet," veteran agent Lionel Larner recalled with a flinch Burton's Toronto liftoff.

"Jessie Tandy was my date, and she said to me, 'Lionel, these women didn't come to see Hamlet. They came to see the guy who's making love to Elizabeth Taylor.' And, at the end of the play, they went up to the footlights, and they were handing programs over for him to sign, which he didn't do. She said, 'Look at those programs. They're not Hamlet programs. They're 'Cleopatra' programs.'"

A number of ex-Hamlets showed up for the interpretation of Law. "It was actually the very first role I ever played, and it made me want to pursue the career of acting," admitted Daniel Sunjata, the neverending hunk of TV's "Rescue Me" and Broadway's Take Me Out. "I was an undergrad, and I'm sure I was horrific." Jefferson Mays, a Tony winner for I Am My Own Wife but sporting a spiffy bowler hat to make you forget that ("I'm a terrible hat fetishist, I'm afraid"), also did the undergrad baptism-by-fire version of Hamlet — "in Yale's Sterling Memorial Library, and then I did it in San Diego in 1995. The role is a glorious mountain, and I can't wait to see Jude scale the heights. I'll try not to recite along."

"Shakespeare in New York — and you didn't produce it?" I taunted The Public's kingpin, Oskar Eustis, who responded with a twist and a wink. "It happens all the time, Harry, but we're great believers that the more Shakespeare that's done in New York, the better it is. This is a wonderful production, and it's delightful to see that the British can do Shakespeare, too. I'd kinda lost track of that."