Shakespeare at The Avyarium

The 2018 KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival is upon us, and with it some blog-relevant offerings.  The first of those that I attended was entitled One Last Bow, Eulogy For the Bard.  It was presented at a new venue for the Fringe, The Avyarium, which could be characterized best as a venue in progress.  The room is a reclaimed warehouse space that is still bare.  The furnishings consisted of a circular stage almost but not quite surrounded by chairs.  Think theatre 83% in the round.  The chairs were wooden contraptions, four seats to a rack, ostensibly saved from a dumpster.  Based on the comfort level, they should have been left there.  One (at least this one) hopes the finished room has more comfortable seating options, as well as climate control.

The play involved several of Shakespeare's characters delivering a eulogy for their creator, using the words that he gave to them.  Present and accounted for were Iago, Juliet, Shylock, Othello, and Hamlet.  The costuming differed in style with a common color theme--black.  The outfits were particular to the character:  Hamlet in princely garb, Juliet in a black evening dress, Shylock in a robe, Othello in black top and stretch pants (?), and Iago in black T-shirt and jeans.  (It appeared that the actor who played Iago may have been an understudy, as he spent the evening reading lines from a script.  The costume may not have been what was intended.)

The play opened with Shakespeare on stage, speaking in language that fit the occasion and seemed to be original.  From off-stage we heard his characters speaking famous lines.  Shakespeare lied on a tabletop and appeared to die.  The action then moved to the characters, delivering lines for which they are noted.  Iago functioned as a sort of emcee.  Hamlet led off with...guess which one.  Juliet followed with the "Tis but thy name that is my enemy" speech.  Shylock followed with a fumbled speech of money, flesh and Christians, which appeared to be a mash-up from Act I, Scene 3 of The Merchant of Venice.  Othello closed out Round 1 with his "Her father loved me" speech.

The characters decided to go for a second round of speeches, at which point Iago left the stage and did not return.  It was unclear why.  Othello led off with the "Put out the light" soliloquy.  Shylock followed with his "If you prick us do we not bleed?" speech.  Juliet delivered her death speech and feigned suicide.  Hamlet closed out the round with the "How all occasions" soliloquy.

For some reason, a seemingly dead Shakespeare woke up at this point.  His nap or near death experience must have inspired him, as he delivered the "All the world's a stage" soliloquy from As You Like It.  He addressed each of his characters (sans Iago), who then left stage.  The play ended with Shakespeare lying down a second time (perhaps dying again?) as the lights faded to black.

I'm not quite sure what it all meant.  The actors delivered their lines mostly adequately, but there was no sympathetic connection between actors and lines or between cast and audience.  The entire exercise was disjointed and seemed to be only an excuse for roughly thirty minutes of oration.  It was, to toss out another quote of the Bard, "wondrous strange."

As it turned out, it was also my only blog-relevant show of the festival.  Although I had planned to attend another, it would have meant a second trip to The Avyarium.  I simply could not bring myself to return to the venue in its present level of discomfort.  So for Fringe 2018, all's well that ends.

 

Hamlet (w/o the Cha-Cha-Cha!)

One week after the last Hamlet adventure, another return trip led to another performance.  This time it was a visit to the Central NY Playhouse, the location of Hamlet Cha-Cha-Cha! in 2013.  (See 8/19/13 post.)  Even without the Durante-esque excitement, the new production yielded a solid and entertaining performance.

First, a note about the venue.  The Playhouse is located in what once was Shoppingtown Mall.  As I arrived, it was to the sight and sound of a patron lying in the parking lot moaning.  Thankfully, security was on the scene.  The interior of the mall is largely vacant space; even the public library has moved out.  The Playhouse and the Regal Cinema were seemingly the only tenants that were open during my visit.  One of the few signs of life was the bird droppings on the railings near the Playhouse, left by the birds who have taken up indoor residence.  Later in the evening, the theatre manager directed patrons to restrooms, located in what used to be the food court.  The vacant, hulking setting made the entire performance feel like a play-within-a-play.

So much for that.  On to the production.  The stage set consisted of two levels--the upper level was four steps above the lower, which was on the stage.  Seating for audience members is all on one level at tables, which led to views obstructed by other patrons' heads, especially during Hamlet's death scene.  There were a few red cloth backdrops to give the hint of a castle interior.  A bench downstage was the sole piece of stationary furniture, with other pieces moved onstage as needed.  Stage left contained a tomb within ivy-covered iron gates, adding a funereal tone to the set.  Costumes were modern dress, with dark colored clothing contrasting with bright red armbands and sashes.  There was a feel of Nazi Germany in colors and mood, lack of swastikas notwithstanding.  Claudius had the unmistakable bearing of Reinhard Heydrich, down to the blond hair, and he had his own sneering SS officer at his side for much of the action.  The director played up this idea of a violent military state, at times going overboard with it.

The play opened as the play should open, namely with Francisco and his mates on the watch.  The ghost appeared as an apparition; in this case it was an image of a man in a white suit projected on a screen.  From there we moved to the court interior where Claudius addressed his subjects.  Polonius, bald and with goatee, was clad in a curious suit which was half-grey and half-black, hinting at a half-neutral, half-enemy character.  Laertes was given a definite family resemblance, also bald and with a goatee.  Upon news that Hamlet would not be returning to Wittenberg, clear distress on the faces of Laertes and Ophelia was evident.

Hamlet's first soliloquy belied something that would be apparent all evening.  As part of this performance, some of the original Shakespearean language was re-translated into a modern feel.  It was unclear if this was a conscious decision on the part of the director or if it was a sign of lines not having been memorized fully, but these textual differences were notable.  While they did alter the meter, they did not alter the feel of the play.  In fact, they likely were only apparent to one who is intimately familiar with the source text.

Laertes and Ophelia entered the stage from the rear of the theatre as brother instructed sister prior to his departure.  The subsequent interaction between Polonius and Laertes was played for humor, leading this audience member to laugh aloud.  It was a well done scene, showing Polonius for a caring, foppish, disciplinarian father and Laertes for a long-suffering son.

The meeting between Hamlet and the ghost included some peculiarities.  The ghost transitioned from apparition to actual actor with a jump and loud landing on stage, something a ghost would not have done.  The entrance should have been muted a bit.  Hamlet came to the meeting carrying a rifle, not a sword.  That alteration fit the context of the play, but leaving in the line about swearing "on my sword" did not.

As with the recent Lyric Theatre production (see 5/13/18 post), an invented interlude between Hamlet and Ophelia took place.  The scene, with no trace of madness, made obvious the romantic relationship between them.  Following Polonius' conversation with Reynaldo--cleverly staged as a phone call!--Ophelia burst in "affrighted."  Hamlet stood upstage left, mouthing the words that Ophelia spoke as if the two had planned the entire script together.  Ophelia became a conspirator with Hamlet, creating a story of antic disposition.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern came on the scene and, as at the Lyric Theatre, one was male and one was female.  Unlike that staging, though, the female role was not played as a floozy.  Instead, both were played as legitimate characters.  It was odd, though, when they were called "good gentlemen."  Was the role male or female?  No matter.  It was not an egregious fault.

Polonius' description of Hamlet's apparent madness was played for humor, with Polonius every bit the verbose fop.  Claudius and Gertrude drank wine to help them get through his monologue, and even the servant who brought the wine got into the act.  His dozing off was an added humorous touch for a scene very well done.

The entrance of the players was altered from Shakespeare's original.  Polonius did not introduce them.  There was no speech about Priam.  This made the "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy awkward as there was no basis at all for it.  The soliloquy itself was heavily edited to mitigate the confusion.

The discussion between Claudius and Polonius about Hamlet was a key piece of the development of Ophelia's character.  She discovers that her lie of Hamlet's madness is leading to their investigation of her boyfriend.  She has become trapped in the plot.  The nunnery scene, then, gained an entirely new dimension.  The whole interaction was staged for the benefit of Claudius and Polonius' spying ears.  Ophelia gestured throughout the interaction to alert Hamlet that the spies were present, ratting them out as it were.  It backfired, though.  Hearing that Hamlet would be sent to England caused an emotional response.  Her conspiring was the cause of her boyfriend's expulsion.  She was hoist with her own petard, to borrow a phrase.

"The Mousetrap" took place after edited directions from Hamlet to the players.  The dumb show was removed, and the murder was transplanted from Vienna to Venice.  The scene itself was relatively mild, although Ophelia's emotion at the pending departure of her boyfriend was apparent.  It gave a different dimension to her outburst.  Following the call for lights, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appeared clad in red armbands, a sign that they had become allies of Claudius.  Hamlet went off to his mother's chamber, and the first part ended with a dreadful addition to the text.  The players were brought back on stage and executed for their disrespect of Claudius.  It was a violent and entirely unnecessary invention.  Eighty minutes after the play had begun, we went to intermission.

The second part began with Claudius and Hamlet's soliloquies.  They were oddly blocked, with the usual question present of how one cannot hear the other considering their physical proximity.  Guns were substituted for swords.  Hamlet carried a pistol, which he brought with him to Gertrude's chamber.  He brought it out to shoot Polonius, a modern and not unique alteration.  The subsequent search for Polonius was needlessly violent, with Hamlet being savaged by Claudius' SS man.  Perhaps it was the overplayed violence that caused Hamlet to flub the line about finding Polonius--If your messenger find him not within two weeks, seek him in the other place yourself.  Oops.  Fortinbras and Norway were left in this production, so the retention of the "How all occasions" soliloquy made sense.  Hamlet went off for England.

Ophelia was a mess in the madness scene, and that is a compliment.  She was suitably emotionally distressed.  An oft-posed question is the cause of her unhappiness.  The relationship between Polonius and Ophelia seems not to be an overly loving one.  Hamlet has shunned her, but the depth of their relationship is not clear.  Polonius dies, but he and his daughter seemed not to be close.  Why such a momentous emotional break?  In this production, the question was answered interestingly and well.  Ophelia and Hamlet were co-conspirators in his antic disposition.  Her lies to Polonius and her scheming with Hamlet led to Hamlet's expulsion and subsequently to Polonius' death.  How could she not feel responsible?  The madness was given cause.  Later, her suicide was displayed vividly.  As Gertrude delivered the account of Ophelia's death, a flashback was shown on the video screen depicting quite clearly that her death was suicide and not accident.  It was good for those who like resolution, but it also removed the doubtful nature of her death that Shakespeare had written.

Laertes and Claudius plotted Hamlet's death.  As a sign that Laertes would be ruled by Claudius, the former received a red armband from the latter.  Gertrude entered upstage during the conversation, and thus she heard the entire plot of the poisoned chalice.  She delivered the aforementioned account of Ophelia's death.

The gravedigger scene was left nearly intact, although an above ground tomb was a bit confusing.  The churlish priest entered in a lab coat, a very odd costume choice.  The altercation between Laertes and Hamlet was as violent as one might imagine given the director's predilection for violence.  Hamlet's subsequent account of the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was much edited.  Osric was annoyingly fun, a well portrayed character in a well portrayed scene.

The duel was relatively straightforward, ironic considering the violence that had surrounded previous scenes.  Following a tearful moment with her son, Gertrude drank the chalice which she knew to be poisoned, thereby committing suicide.  The usual characters died, and the rest was silence.  Fortinbras entered to see much amiss, and he was notably very excited at the sight.  The lights faded and nearly three hours after it had begun, the play was over.

Overall, I found this to be a very creditable production.  The acting was on all counts quite good.  The actors were believable in their roles and played them well.  While some directorial decisions were questionable, none of them were severe enough to sink the production.  I applaud the entire company for an interesting and enjoyable evening!

A Lyric Hamlet

Hamlet returned to Rochester and to the Lyric Theatre.  While the last appearance was a tribute of sorts (see 10/2/16 post), this was a full-fledged production courtesy of Screen Plays.  It was an uneven production, characterized by performances both good and bad and some questionable direction.

The setting for the performance was the Lyric's Cabaret Hall, the smaller of their two venues I have visited (and the same one that held the aforementioned tribute).  Most of the action occurred on a thrust stage with a tiled floor, while some of the action moved offstage or onto the upper balcony around the seating bowl.  The set, described vaguely in the playbill as Elsinore in "The Present and The Past," consisted of some chairs, a small table, and a chaise longue.  Audience seating was on uncomfortable, plastic folding chairs.  Seat cushions were offered to those who chose to alert via smart phone the usual social media platforms of their attendance.  I saw no seat cushions among the audience, a sign that the enticement was not enough.  Costumes were modern dress, formal or casual depending on context.

While reading the playbill, my optimism at the evening's show was put on guard.  It began with the title of the dramaturg's essay, "On Gender, Hamlet, and Theatre in the 21st Century."  This production included a "woman playing the role of Hamlet," a phrase the dramaturg quoted and then denounced as "troublesome in a variety of ways."  Having seen numerous productions with female leads, the essay struck me as defensive protesting.  If the play is done well, the gender of the actor is irrelevant.  It's when the director starts to reinvent Shakespeare that problems arise....

The play opened in the light; upper windows and early evening sunlight prevented the room from being put into darkness.  While the room was not put into darkness, the play was with an invented scene to begin.  Horatio opened with his speech from the end of the play, that of recounting accidental judgments, casual slaughters, and the like.  Meanwhile, an entire cast of ghosts emerged to frighten Horatio.  That oddity concluded, we dove into action as Claudius addressed the royal court about green memory.  Shakespeare's entire castle sequence opening was omitted.  Sorry, honest Francisco!

The initial appearance of Horatio (another female cast as a male) alerted the audience to a directorial gimmick that was to drag down the performance throughout.  As discussed in the director's essay in the playbill, the entire play was taking place in Horatio's mind as he read about the action from records that Hamlet had kept in life, his "tables."  Thus, the "recounting" that Horatio mentioned in the invented prologue was given literal meaning.  The directorial decision necessitated Horatio's presence on or about stage almost the entire evening, standing back as an observer, reading the action we were seeing.  (Could Hamlet have recorded events he never saw?  Best not to ask.)  This upstaging was distracting.  To worsen matters, the portrayal of Horatio was a maudlin disaster.  The character spent most of the evening looking as if he was about to burst into tears. While an interesting idea in theory, in practice such nonsense cast a pall on the rest of the action.

Back to the royal court.  Claudius spoke in an even, emotionless, understated tone, much as he spoke all of his lines.  There was no mention of Norway or Fortinbras, highlighting one way in which the play would be edited.  (Thankfully, the "How all occasions" soliloquy was removed accordingly and not forced as in the recent UB production.  See 3/14/18 post.)  Polonius sought leave for his son.  The portrayal of Polonius was one of the evening's highlights--subtle, scheming yet not overly foppish.  The handlebar mustache (a la Snidely Whiplash) and goatee gave his costume a bit of unstated duplicity.

Hamlet entered, clad all in black.  With close-cropped hair and unisex clothing, the gender of the role was not nearly as distracting as the dramaturg's essay had anticipated.  In fact, the gender issue was a non-issue.  M.J. Savastano did a very creditable job in the title role.  Her Hamlet was Hamlet.  He was well-performed and generally believable.  While at times the delivery of lines seemed a bit forced, the role itself was unmarred by casting decisions.  The histrionic car wreck that was Horatio was far more of a problem.

The action proceeded generally according to Shakespeare until an invented scene depicting an interlude between Hamlet and Ophelia.  Polonius observed the interaction from the upper level.  When he approached Ophelia, she realized she had been caught.  To cover the brief liaison, she claimed to be "affrighted."  The speech that followed then became a lie to cover her actions.  This unfortunate decision turned Ophelia into a deceiver, no better or more sympathetic than the other characters.  It also eliminated Hamlet's early displays of antic disposition.

The appearance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was enough to turn this audience member's stomach.  Both characters were portrayed by women; not an issue in itself.  One of them was dressed as a man, in a not-terribly-modern suit.  The other was dressed as some sort of, to be polite, floozy.  What exactly was the point?  I have no idea.  It is one thing to cast a female in a male role.  It is quite another to change the role entirely.  If the thought was to generate comic relief, it failed completely.  Fortunately, the two characters are minor enough roles that they were not on stage much.  It's a shame they had to be on stage at all.

Another questionable directorial decision involved the reordering of scenes from Shakespeare's Acts II and III.  Polonius hid behind an arras.  Hamlet delivered the "To be" soliloquy.  The nunnery scene followed.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern entered (ugh).  The "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy came next.  Claudius urged vigilance for "madness in great ones."  Cut to Hamlet, urging the player to "speak the speech...trippingly."  Time was out of joint, literally.

The progression was a mess.  Consider.  This Hamlet believes Polonius to be behind Ophelia's returning of favors.  Hamlet is angry, as evidenced by the nunnery scene (which Horatio watched from the balcony!).  Then we cut to "words, words, words," and see Hamlet interact with Polonius in a playful fashion.  The "To be" soliloquy's placement as the centerpiece of the play was gone.  The juxtaposition simply did not work. 

The arrival of the players injected more confusion into the proceedings.  For some reason, it took three players to deliver the speech about Priam.  It was delivered as comedy, destroying the idea of red face and tears.  This then muddies the rationale for the "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy.  If the actor does not deliver a believable, emotional speech, then how would Hamlet have a suitable contrast to describe?  No matter, as the speech was edited heavily.

The blocking for "The Mousetrap" had Claudius, Gertrude, and Polonius on one side of the stage and Hamlet, Ophelia, and Horatio on the opposite side, a great way to display the two factions.  There was no dumb show for Claudius to miss.  The play-within-the-play was well acted.  Claudius' degree of displeasure was not evident as the tone of his lines was unwavering throughout.  His soliloquy was bland, and Hamlet's response was delivered on stage level instead of using the balcony.  Hamlet went to visit his mother, Polonius was stabbed, the son wished Gertrude good night, and, roughly ninety minutes after they went up, the lights faded.

During the short intermission that followed, a fellow audience member asked if I was a critic reviewing the play.  (The notepad and pen gave me away, I guess.)  After I replied that I was taking notes for myself, she asked me a question:  "Who was the woman hanging around the king?"  Happy that someone else had noticed that oddity, I replied that it must have been an awkwardly placed, unnamed attendant.  The character had no lines and just stood around looking out of place.  I suggested that it might have been the original's Cornelius or Voltemand, who were not named in the character list.  She asked if it was Osric, and I said that it probably was not as he appeared much later.  Little did I know...

Meanwhile, Horatio reappeared.  In character.  During the intermission.  Sitting off to the side, reading from Hamlet's tables.  So does that mean that Hamlet wrote about an intermission in his book and we were all part of the play in Horatio's mind?  Again, best not to ask.

The second act began with another invented scene.  We saw Horatio deliver to Ophelia the news that Polonius had died.  Terrific.  Another reason to see Horatio get teary-eyed.  Simultaneously, on the upper level, Hamlet read the letter calling for his death while Laertes read a letter, likely recounting the death of Polonius.  Why create new scenes?

Ophelia's subsequent madness scene was one of the mildest I have seen.  It was not overdone emotionally; in fact, quite the opposite.  She was very well-groomed for being mad.  Her songs were plentiful, and her flowers were pages torn from a diary.  There was no screaming or sobbing.  Considering the well of water that was Horatio, Ophelia's understated performance was a welcome relief.

A sailor appeared on stage to deliver letters from Hamlet.  It was a very poor attempt at comic relief.  The letter to Claudius was delivered.  He and Laertes hatched their plot, while the awkward attendant stood behind and listened to the entire discussion.  A third conspirator!

The gravedigger scene, Shakespeare's intended comic relief, was terribly unfunny.  There was no grave; there was a table covered in a black cloth and placed atop another black cloth.  Some "digging" occurred, which involved removing physical remains from under the stage and placing them into a wooden crate.  The curious aspect of the scene was one of casting--the actress who played Ophelia was one of the gravediggers.  It worked for the Public Theater (see 8/21/17 post).  How would her body be placed into the grave this time?  The laughable answer--she was cremated!  Her ashes were brought out in a urn.  (Historical and Christian discussions of this nonsensical plot twist must be put aside.)  The irony of the gravedigger who once was Ophelia carrying the ashes that once were Ophelia was not lost on this audience member.

The appearance of Osric added another new directorial dimension.  Osric was the awkward attendant who had been present throughout the evening, including during the discussion of the conspiracy.  (That audience member had been right!)  Osric's entrance was marked by confusion when the hat, which should have been off his (her) head, was on it.  The duel that followed was straightforward if unimaginative.  Somehow Laertes was stabbed through his protective vest and died.  Osric ran out a side door to director knows where.  The king showed no emotion when his plot was discovered.  The usual players died, and the rest was silent (silence?).

Or was it?  We were dragged back to the beginning of the evening as the prologue was re-staged.  Horatio delivered the lines with which he had opened the play and the ghosts reappeared.  Things were brought full circle.  Then the 45-minute second act was over.

This Hamlet had a bit of a red herring aspect.  The supposed major point of controversy, having a "woman playing the role of Hamlet," was not contentious at all.  It was not the gender of Hamlet that caused this critic difficulty.  That non-issue merely distracted from the more serious problem, namely the substitution of the director's judgment for that of the playwright.  Inventing scenes, rearranging the order of others, changing characters--these are the true difficulties here, the true flaw of this tragedy.  The effort was muddled by these non-accidental judgments, which ultimately left this production "fall'n on th' inventors' heads."

P.C. Hamlet

Recently I was pointed in the direction of an article entitled "The Modern Major Remodelling of the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas."  It appears in the February 2018 issue of New Theatre Quarterly (see citation below).  The author, Prof. Alan Fischler, was the inspiration for this blogging venture 177 posts ago.  It is only fitting that his new article is the subject of one of these posts...and that it intersects with the underlying theme of this blog.

The article describes the effects of political correctness on several of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas.  Included are discussions of Princess Ida, which mocks women's education, and The Mikado, which mocks the Japanese.  Prof. Fischler also describes Utopia, Limited, which "as an opera is not very good" (42), but recently has increased in popularity due to its anti-colonialist and anti-capitalist stance.  The article is an interesting and thought-provoking analysis of the ways in which modern sensibilities force reinterpretation of historical works and the validity of this revisionist behavior.

While Gilbert and Sullivan are outside of both the focus of this blog and the blogger's bailiwick, I had to smile when a reference to Hamlet appeared in the article.  It appears that cultural sensitivity (or hyper-sensitivity) is not a new phenomenon.  In 1907, The Mikado was banned in England out of fear that it would offend visiting Prince Fushimi of Japan.  Opposition to this measure rose on numerous fronts, including in the Houses of Parliament.  The following newspaper extract describes such one response.

"Mr Vincent Kennedy, M.P., has given notice that he will ask the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the fact that in the play of Hamlet the King of Denmark is portrayed as a murderer; and whether, in view of the fact that Denmark is a friendly power, and this reference to the King is liable to cause offence in Denmark, he will ask the Lord Chamberlain to prohibit the production of this play; and whether he intends to bring in legislation to define and limit the powers of the Lord Chamberlain"  (Baily, 417).

Common sense prevailed and performances of Hamlet were not interrupted.  It was six weeks, however, before the Home Secretary would announce in the House of Commons that the ban on The Mikado was "unconditionally withdrawn" (Baily, 419).


Citations

Baily, Leslie.  The Gilbert and Sullivan Book.  Revised ed.  New York:  Coward-McCann, Inc., 1957.

Fischler, Alan. “The Modern Major Remodelling of the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas.” New Theatre Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 1, 2018, pp. 35–46., doi:10.1017/S0266464X17000665.

Hamlet at UB

A chance visit to the University of Buffalo's Center for the Arts (CFA) website led to another Hamlet excursion.  While purchasing tickets for the David Byrne concert at the venue, I discovered that the university's Department of Theatre and Dance was producing Hamlet for the stage.  Another ticket purchase later, it would lead to a second trip to UB in one week.

The performance took place in the Drama Theatre.  While I have been to the CFA numerous times, it was my first visit to that particular room.  It is an excellent space--small (compared to the Mainstage), with comfortable stadium seating and great sight lines.  I was in the center section, Row B, and it did not feel too close to the action, which sometimes can be an issue.  I was able to see the entire stage, a proscenium with a rounded apron, without any difficulty.

The set consisted of one large piece:  a two-level welded metal lattice-type frame.  It generally resembled a castle, with the upper level serving as parapets.  Underneath was the castle's interior, including two thrones with design similar to the castle.  The latticework allowed actors to climb to the upper level, but the design also led to some confusion during the play.  Actors hung their coats on the lattice of a "solid" wall.  Actors passed through archways while others walked around the walls, a la TV's Police Squad.  At one point, Hamlet crawled through the wall to enter the interior and then exited through the arch.  A more consistent pattern of use would have helped.  Rounding out the permanent set were two six-tier chandeliers which may have been cast off from previous productions.  While other chairs and stools were brought onto stage as necessary, the set remained relatively barren.

The play opened with Barnardo and Francisco, soon joined by Marcellus and Horatio, atop the castle.  All four roles were cast with females.  Although I have seen instances with similar casting decisions, placing an actress in the role of Horatio still does not resonate.  In this case, the role was decidedly male, forcing a relatively easy suspension of disbelief.  The ghost was introduced as a giant shadow cast on stage by an actor standing in front of a light behind the audience.  I liked the effect.

The action moved to the interior of the castle as we were introduced to the members of the royal court.  All were clad in modern dress, mostly formal.  There was no discussion of Fortinbras or Norway, a fairly standard edition.  A more glaring issue, however, was casting a female as Polonius.  The believability factor was much less in this case than in that of Horatio.  Polonius was clad in a female pantsuit and heels.  On occasion, she teased her hair.  Was this a male role?  The portrayal was not easily believed as such.  This problem persisted throughout the performance.

Hamlet's introductory dialogue did not bode well for what was to come.  It struck me as forced; words without art.  The actor was hitting the words, but the feeling behind them was not apparent.  The emotion did not come across to this audience member as real.  On the positive side, though, Hamlet was the correct age for the story (as were his contemporaries).  I was willing to give the actor more time to get into the part.

Hamlet's meeting with the ghost led to one of the first oddities with blocking.  Whereas in the text Hamlet runs away from his friends to follow the ghost, here his friends climbed down from the castle to get away from him.  A corporeal ghost, clad in robe, chains, and chain mail, appeared.  When the discussion was complete, the ghost traded places with Hamlet's friends.  Its "Swear it!" commands came while it was seated on the throne, a nice bit of directorial design.

The first act continued reasonably if unemotionally.  Hamlet's costume, formal from the waist up and goth from the waist down, did not display much of an antic disposition.  The players (an entire troupe of females, dressed as clowns sans make-up) were not allowed to play much.  The first player's speech about Priam was badly mauled; Polonius' claims of its length were undeserved.  There were no red face and tears, which destroyed the sense of Hamlet's "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy that followed.  The delivery took care of what was left of the speech, making it entirely unbelievable.

Tension between Claudius and Gertrude was visible during their subsequent interaction.  Upon delivering the line "I shall obey you," Gertrude pulled away, displaying obvious anger.  She was much more sympathetic toward Ophelia.  It was a sign that her loyalties lied more on the side of her son than her husband.

The "To be or not to be" soliloquy was delivered fairly well.  Upon spying "the fair Ophelia," a strange flashback occurred.  The two characters did a short bit of slow dancing, complete with musical accompaniment.  It was a rather awkward display of their former feelings for each other.  Ophelia was well-played in the nunnery scene as piteous, obviously controlled by her father/mother.

"The Mousetrap" scene showed a Hamlet who blamed Polonius for destroying the relationship with Ophelia.  Questionable editing led to the removal of Shakespeare's more colorful bits of dialogue in this scene--no capon, chameleon's dish, or witticisms about Caesar and Brutus.  There was no dumb show.  For some reason, Polonius sat with Ophelia during the play and Hamlet sat nearby on the floor.  Gertrude and Claudius were visibly affected by the play.  Gertrude was upset by the player queen's speech and confused by the poisoning, while Claudius was angered.

Notable issues with dialogue began to creep into the performance.  For example, this exchange.

Ophelia:  "You are as good as a chorus, my lord."
Hamlet:  "As woman's love."

The problems continued in the "by and by" interchange (which lacked any camels, weasels, or whales), with a halting "fool me" thrown in the middle.  With the "witching time of night" soliloquy, the first act came to a close.

The second act began with Claudius in a new formal suit and Polonius in a rain coat.  The latter's choice of attire was not addressed, but surely it was not raining indoors.  When Claudius began his soliloquy, the delivery elicited at least one laugh from the gallery.  The speech was not presented believably, and it was noticed.  Hamlet's retort was presented on the same stage level, engendering the question of how each does not hear the other.

At this point, the proverbial wheels began to fall off.  Polonius died (welcome but poorly blocked), and Hamlet directed his "cruel to be kind" line at the corpse.  Shortly thereafter, a shortened "How all occasions" soliloquy appeared.  Why?  All references to Fortinbras, the basis for this speech, had been removed.  If one is trying to edit the play for length, then this speech should go.  It was delivered terribly.  Hamlet stumbled over the words several times, apparently having forgotten his lines.  He climbed up to the top of the castle mid-speech and then climbed back down.  He screamed his monologue for no apparent reason.  It was painful to watch.

Ophelia, the unsung hero of the performance, delivered a very good madness scene.  The actress was believable, even shedding real tears.  She also showed off an excellent singing voice.  Her flowers were actual flowers, albeit artificial ones.  It was a nice touch.

The funeral scene was poorly done.  All of the humorous dialogue between the two gravediggers was excised for time constraints.  The pair acted their scene on the upper level, which could have worked.  Hamlet and Horatio were with them.  Unfortunately, the entire funeral party was on stage level.  Where, then, were Hamlet and Horatio, exactly?  Watching from the clouds?  Things worsened when Ophelia was placed on a bench as a grave.  Hamlet jumped down from the top to confront Laertes and the two fought.  Was everyone inside the grave?  The scene closed with Laertes carrying Ophelia's body offstage.  Why?  Yorick's skull sat at the edge of the upper level, watching the remainder of the action.  It was another subtle yet fitting effect.

The duel scene continued the downhill slide.  Osric was cast with no hat and no humor.  Laertes visibly poisoned his foil on stage, yet every other cast member seemed not to notice.  There was no pearl to drop into the cup; we were left to imagine one.  The duel itself was laughable, literally, as Hamlet tried to fend off Laertes with his leather coat.  Claudius died after a phantom and bloodless slash to his throat that was very much off target.  Liquid (water?) in the poisoned cup was thrown on his face, eliciting more laughs from the audience.  Eventually, everyone had died, the lights went down and the play was over, roughly two hours after it had begun.

Reflecting upon the evening, I wonder about the purpose of the production.  The Director's Note in the playbill included a reference to sharing the play "with our young audiences...."  (Additional viewings were scheduled solely for school audiences.)  Fellow audience members commented before the play about it being required viewing for students enrolled in various UB courses.  One student noted that his course had no books; the only requirement was attendance at (and tests on) the plays, much cheaper than the alternative.  Two patrons near me left at intermission, after one asked the other, "Do you have your ticket stub?"  I would like to believe that the cast and crew were sincere in their intentions, but the finished product, with questionable blocking and editing and very uneven delivery, leaves questions.  Was this intended as serious theatre or merely as a school requirement?  Regardless, I must give credit to the cast and crew for making the attempt.  While certain aspects of the play were noteworthy, greater overall care would have made this a much better, more believable, production.

 

Understanding Hamlet

During last year's trip to the Stratford Festival, I picked up a new book for the Hamlet library.  This one is entitled Understanding Hamlet:  A Study Guide by Robert Renwick.  The 2015 work is advertised as "intended for readers wishing to deepen their comprehension and appreciation of what is arguably Shakespeare's greatest play....  The book is ideal for students, teachers and theatregoers."  As a member (at least in a figurative sense) of each of the three categories, I decided to give it a try.  (Plus, the book was inexpensive and autographed by the author!)

The book opens with an "Introduction to Hamlet."  This section presents a Sparknotes-style treatment of the play.  It comprises a list of characters, notes on setting and source material, and a brief summary and analysis.  Those are followed by a thorough synopsis and commentary of the play.  I found that section to be particularly useful, even though I am well versed in the play.  It is a balanced, straightforward rendering of the plot, including interesting asides from the author.  For instance, Renwick notes the oddity of Hamlet's first meeting with Horatio, even though the latter has been in Denmark for the funeral and wedding.  The author identifies the poison used to murder Old Hamlet as henbane, similar to the Folger edition note regarding hebona (hebanon).

Renwick labels seven soliloquies from Hamlet, including the short "O all you host of heaven" speech in I, v.  In a note on the "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy, he questions the value for Hamlet of having the players reenact the murder of his father.  Later, he describes Hamlet's "limited degree of self-understanding" displayed in the "To be or not to be" soliloquy.

In describing "The Mousetrap," Renwick asserts that the exchanges between Player King and Queen may have been part of the additional lines that Hamlet inserted into the text.  Regarding Hamlet's subsequent departure for England, he questions Hamlet's willingness to undertake a voyage that obviously will delay his revenge plot.  Later, Renwick ascribes a lapse of logic to Claudius and Laertes' conspiracy.  "It fails to occur to either of them," he notes, "that a death caused by poison would hardly appear accidental."

In his discussion of the duel, Renwick calls the preliminary apologetic exchange between Hamlet and Laertes "blatantly hypocritical."  Each knows that he is lying; Hamlet about his insanity and Laertes about settling the matter honorably.  Renwick describes the poisoned pearl used by Claudius as "actually hollow and contains poison," an interesting notion.

The second part of the book contains four extended essays about Hamlet.  The first, "A Fetch of Warrant:  The Indirect Method in Hamlet," discusses the numerous uses of indirection and their degrees of success.  Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, and Hamlet all employ indirect methods so "By indirections to find directions out."  Based on his analyses of each instance, Renwick concludes that indirect methods have failed.  As he puts it, "Direct action could hardly have produced worse results."

The second essay, "Mighty Opposites:  The Virtues of Claudius, The Vices of Hamlet," compares the two characters contrary to the manner in which one typically might.  Perhaps Claudius is not entirely the contemptuous villain nor Hamlet entirely the sympathetic victim as one might think.  The extended analysis leads to the conclusion that both Hamlet and Claudius possess defects in character.  Hamlet is "mean-spirited and lacking will-power," while Claudius is "overly egocentric and deficient in conscience."

"Defying Augury:  God, Fate, Free Will, and Chance in Hamlet" looks at various forces guiding the characters, especially Hamlet himself.  Impulsiveness in the Prince yields both positive and negative consequences, generally falling on the latter option.  "[His] failure to turn chance occurrences to full advantage led to his death.  Although he avenged his father's murder, too many other lives were lost as well."

The final essay, "Frailty, is Woman thy True Name?" looks at the play's female characters.  Renwick concludes that Gertrude and Ophelia "displayed considerable strength of character throughout the play."  While they might have displayed momentary weaknesses, their overall behavior does not match Hamlet's characterization of frailty.

Understanding Hamlet is a very creditable addition to the Hamlet library.  Certainly it should prove helpful to a student undertaking a study of the play for the first time.  For the veteran, there also is considerable merit in its summaries and analyses.  I recommend it for anyone interested in learning more about Hamlet.

Manga Hamlet

My brother managed to find another Christmas gift among the Hamlet books I don't own.  His offering:  Hamlet from the Manga Shakespeare series.  The work, adapted by Richard Appignanesi and illustrated by Emma Vieceli, had caught my eye on more than one occasion.  My brother finally added it to my personal library.  (Thanks!)

The book was published in 2007.  On the first page, the scene is set for this particular telling of Hamlet, ten years in the future.  The correctness of the prediction is rather unsettling.

The year is 2017.  Global climate change has devastated the Earth.  This is now a cyberworld in constant dread of war.  Prince Hamlet of Denmark has come home to face an uncertain future...

A graphic novel presentation of Hamlet has the benefit of being able to present action more visually than simply reading a play.  (See 1/17/16 post for another graphic novel treatment.)  It allows the play to come to life on the printed page.  The artwork here largely is in black and white except for several color pages to introduce the cast.  At times it was difficult to interpret the fine points of the drawings, especially as they related to the play's futuristic context.  Most of the art is easy to understand, though, and it should not present issues to a reader coming to Hamlet for the first time.

In order to have a work of reasonable length (approximately 195 pages here), significant editing had to take place.  As a result, much of Shakespeare's language is lost.  Soliloquies are presented in  reduced form or in the case of "How all occasions..." omitted entirely.  The book does a good job of keeping the bulk of the action of the play.  There also is a plot summary at the end of the book for readers who need an additional bit of comprehension help.

As with the other graphic novel treatment of Hamlet reviewed previously, this one does well with bringing the story to an audience that may be unfamiliar with the play.  Hopefully the brief telling would lead the novice reader to view a live version of the play.  For the more dedicated fan, the work still has merit.  It is a fun read!  Manga Shakespeare presents yet one more interesting version of Hamlet, again demonstrating the adaptability of the play.