There’s a bit of hubris attached to any solo performance, especially one in which a single actor plays multiple roles to relate a densely plotted story. Eddie Izzard, a veteran stand-up comedian and accomplished actor who performed a 2 hour, 15 minute solo version of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations on stage just over a year ago, now returns to Off Broadway’s Greenwich House Theater for a solo stab at William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Yes, Izzard plays Hamlet. And Ophelia. And everyone Elsinore, including poor Yorick, alas.

But there’s a vast difference between Dickens and the Bard. The former is a storyteller we’re accustomed to hearing read aloud, preferably curled up in a blanket by a fireside, where the British novelist’s wordy descriptions paint a word picture that brings the characters and scenarios to life. But with Shakespeare, a solo performer must not only conjure the poetry of the dialogue but make clear who is speaking these memorable lines without the effort appearing ridiculous.

No matter now swiftly Izzard spins to take a position just to the left or the right of where the last speaker just stood, the act of switching between characters never overcomes a certain level of absurdity. (I pity any newbie who hasn’t seen or read Hamlet before.) There are some clever touches, like rendering Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as virtual hand puppets yapping between the speaker they’re addressing. But the final sword duel between Laertes and Hamlet carries the strong whiff of an SNL sketch gone wrong. (Director Selena Cadell’s staging does the actor no favors here.)

But Izzard is not aiming for a farcical send-up, or even a comedic update like James Ijames’ brilliant 2022 Pulitzer winner Fat Ham. To her credit, she shows a vocal restraint distinguishing the characters that underscore her more serious intent. Fortinbras gets a vaguely Scottish accent, but Izzard mostly relies on more subtle inflections — an almost pompous bearing for Hamlet’s regicidal new stepdad Claudius, a puffed-up fatuousness for the long-winded Polonius (who, in brother Mark Izzard’s adaptation, is robbed of one of his most famous lines: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”).

Izzard, with her androgynous pageboy ‘do and a sleek outfit mostly in black, maintains a preternatural command of the stage — though she stumbled several times to recall lines during the performance I attended. (The show is scheduled to run through March 16.) Surprisingly, she is weakest portraying the play’s two female characters: Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, is reduced to a peripheral simp, while Ophelia becomes a wan figure undone by misplaced first love. And here’s the rub: Izzard’s Hamlet sadly remains a cypher, more so than usual, stutter-stepping through a revenge plot after seeing the ghost of his slain father. This adaptation lacks an animating point of view beyond the stunt of having a single actor play all the roles. Despite Izzard’s considerable gifts, this Hamlet is more an act of madness than method.