HAMLET

From: "will stackman" profwlll@yahoo.com

Subject: Quicktake - "Hamlet" by Wm. Shakespeare

Date: Mon, July 17, 9:48 AM

Quicktake on HAMLET

     Eleanor Holdridge, the director of the first production of "Hamlet" this esteemed company has presented has fallen prey to concept, but fortunately that doesn't much get in the way of a cast of experienced Shakespearean's doing the play up brown. Her opinion that young Hamlet would have made a terrible king does limit the possibilities of Jason Asprey's development of the melancholy Dane, however. The role is played with a bit too much teen age angst and perhaps too little of the noble mind, but is still affecting. Holdridge also suggests that the whole evening is some sort of massive flashback, the Prince's life flashing -- literally -- before his eyes before he dies. The loud sounds and strobes which accompany this concept do keep the audience on its toes. Since the company for the play has been reduced to 11, she's also made cuts and rearrangements. The play starts in the court rather than on the battlements--a not uncommon tactic when trying to shorten this three hour plus work--but later on reduces the players to the Player King alone, which then requires Gertrude, played by Tina Packer, founder of S&C and Jason's mother, and Claudius, played by Nigel Gore, to read their parts in "The Mousetrap." Hamlet also delivers his advice to the players to them, something of an in-joke. This complex rewrite is interesting to watch and works more or less, but perhaps Polonius, played by Asprey's stepfather, Dennis Krausnick, in the context of the action, might more logically have done the murdering brother. Gore plays the realization as well as can be expected but the scene becomes muddled.

    Fortinbras, played by Stephen James Anderson, fortunately has been left in, though in modern combat gear he's scruffier than need be. The show is modern dress, though Hamlet shows up for the play with a play in a doublet wearing an Elizabethan ruff. Much of the rest of the time he's a bit retro, suggesting Edwin Booth in street clothes. The Prince's two main foils, Horatio and Laertes, are done with conviction by Howard W. Overshown and Kevin O'Donnell. Elizabeth Raetz's Ophelia is affecting but not fully in tune with the ensemble, though her relationship with Hamlet is touching. An excellent English actor, John Windsor-Cunningham triples as the Ghost, the Player King and the lone Gravedigger, making each part memorable. Edward Check's minimal set in the black box is functional if occasionally indulgent. Ophelia doesn't have a gravetrap, but she does get to open a manhole cover and dabble in some water during the mad scene. And for some reason Hamlet's favorite corner of the palace includes a giant lighting globe. However, none of the show's eccentricities get in the way of truly powerful performance from all the principals, unlike the pastiche presented last summer on the Boston Common.

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"Hamlet" by Wm. Shakespeare, July 1 - Aug. 27

Shakespeare & Co. in Founders Theatre

70 Kemble St. (RT.7A) Lenox MA, (413) 637 - 3353
Shakespeare & Co.