HAMLET
The cast of Hamlet spends far too much time working hard. Which is a shame, because in those few scenes where craft supersedes histrionics, where the actors rely on the tools of acting rather than emotional displays, this production achieves a clarity and dramatic urgency rare in contemporary productions of Shakespeare.
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In fact, the first act of this Hamlet is perhaps the most successful 20 minutes of Shakespeare I’ve seen onstage. From the tense, hushed opening on the castle wall, where Barnado (Brian McCaskill), Marcellus (J.T. Gorham), and Horatio (Mark Salamon) see the ghost of the recently deceased king (Bob Fisher), to the feigned charm of the court of Claudius (Ted Rubenstein) and Gertrude (Deirdre Waters), to the explosive encounter between Hamlet (Benjamin Werling) and the ghost of his father, this first act is characterized by passionate restraint. Director Louis Contey’s staging is efficient and formal, his actors for the most part remaining stationary or moving in simple patterns and delivering the text straightforwardly. The cast seems to understand that Shakespeare’s text requires subtlety rather than force.
This production is further hampered by enormous cuts in the text. Much of the encounter between Hamlet and the traveling players is gone, including the pivotal scene in which Hamlet, overwhelmed by a fictional story an actor tells, stands bewildered in the face of his own inability to revenge his father’s death. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are also gone, taking from Hamlet, among other things, his “What a piece of work is man” speech, where he again confronts his own utter detachment. Overall, what has been eliminated or minimized in this production are those factors that prevent Hamlet from taking action. Yet it’s just this hesitation, this paralysis in a world seemingly devoid of meaning, that provides the dramatic core of the play.
