HAMLET (ASP)

From: "will stackman" profwlll@yahoo.com

Subject: Quicktake - "Hamlet" by Wm. Shakespeare + Hamlet Conversation with ASP and S&C

Date: Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Quicktake on HAMLET

     Ben Evett's Actors Shakespeare Project continues to find new ways to look at the canon, without resorting to adaptation or techical trickery. This time they've put the play on the stage of the Strand Theatre, the renovated silent movie palace in Dorchester at Upham's Corner. Evett himself takes the title role under the direction of the New Rep's Rick Lombardo who he's worked with before. The usually eclectic ASP cast is bolstered by Johnny Lee Davenport, who's appeared with S&C and many other Shakespeare companies, as Claudius. He's joined by several other African Americans, including Willie E. Teacher as Horatio and Edward O'Blenis as Laertes. Marya Lowry as Gertrude, Robert Walsh as Polonius, plus Ken Cheeseman as The Ghost, the Player King, and the Gravedigger and Sara Newhouse as both Rosenkrantz and Osric—the first played as a man, the second as a woman—have all appeared previously with ASP. Marianna Bassham, seen at the New Rep and the Lyric, is a heart-wrenching Ophelia. Actors with other Shakespeare credits fill out the 16 member ensemble, including composer Bill Barclay, who performs onstage during "The Mousetrap" and plays the steel cello under it throughout.

     In what may become a regular part of their programme, the company hosted a discussion moderated by Harvard's Steven Greenblatt, with Tina Packer, her husband Dennis Krausnik, and son Jason Asprey from the S&C "family" production of "Hamlet" this summer and Bassham, Davenport, Lowry, Walsh & Evett representing ASP's current effort. Joining them was assistant director Per Jensen from Trinity, where the play was done last season with an "Upstairs/Downstairs" motif plus Steven Maler, who helmed Commonwealth Shakespeare's version on the Common two summer's ago. The points under discussion were illustrated by short scenes performed by members of S&C and ASP to appreciative applause. Maybe next time, the Publick Theatre and Shakespeare Now! can join the fray.

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""Hamlet" by Wm. Shakespeare, Oct. 19 - Nov. 12

Actors Shakespeare Project at The Strand, Upham's Corner

543 Columbia Rd. Dorchester, 1 (866) 811 - 4111
A.S.P