The dramatic experience was presented by Dream/Visualize/Create, an "organization of high school students and local artists devoted to producing socially relevant theatrical performances in the Rochester (NY) community." The location for the extravaganza was MuCCC, a small black box-esque facility in Rochester. It was both my first exposure to DVC and my first visit to MuCCC, but hopefully not my last of either.
The production combined several sources into a roughly 90-minute piece. The first act opened with a prologue from Kill Shakespeare, a graphic novel series created by Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col. The speech was accompanied by projections of art from the books. Following that were several monologues, including the "O, what a rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy to whet one's Hamlet appetite. Another excerpt from Kill Shakespeare led into the first act's major portion.
The bulk of the first act was a very compressed version of Hamlet entitled Hamlet, Approximately. It is based on The Quick Hamlet by Philip K. Frey. The play takes all five acts of Hamlet and reduces them into an approximate 30-minute running time. This was done primarily through heavily-edited dialogue. All of Shakespeare's original characters appeared, even Fortinbras, who often is omitted from full-fledged productions. The action moved quickly, as one might expect. While many, many lines were dropped, the plot of the play remained intact and completely comprehensible.
The actors, high school and college students, did an excellent job. It was not a polished production, but it was a sincere effort to present Hamlet. And it was enjoyable. It was heartening to see such a young group work to stage a difficult play, to do it well and to exude enjoyment while doing it. Yet another generation caught under the spell of Hamlet. The applause at the end of act one was well deserved!
As the stage was being transformed during the intermission, the surplus of plastic sheeting covering the stage was a hint of what was to come. While the sight of it did provide a visual rhyme, it was when the instrumental theme from the TV series Dexter played over the sound system that I laughed aloud.
Then came the second act. Entitled ShakesBLOOD, it was an amusing mish-mash of Shakespearean works combined with quite a lot of blood. It was heavily steeped in MacBeth, although Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus and a hungry bear were included. Even Hamlet, with his "To be or not to be" soliloquy, managed to make an appearance. It was difficult to figure out what was going on with this work, other than an excuse to have some fun with Shakespeare while throwing blood about and occasionally dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller. It was moderate entertainment done reasonably well.
The Shakespeare-apalooza-rama was an interesting addition to my Hamlet travels, indeed "an experience," as one audience member put it at the play's conclusion. I will close this post with an extended quote from the play's director, which I believe sums up exceedingly well the benefit of this particular artistic endeavor, as well as any performance of Shakespeare's works.
"[How] do you perform Hamlet...the right way? There are simply too many variables to consider--the production's concept, the skill level of the actors, the translation of the play being used, the cuts we have oh-so-pretentiously decided needed to be made, our interpretation of what Shakespeare actually intended in each scene, each line, each word.
Maybe it is enough that a production need only do one thing right: take Shakespeare's centuries old text, dig in deep enough to find its heart, and lay it out on stage in such a way as to make a modern audience understand and appreciate [its]breadth and depth. To make it mean something."Amen to that!
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