Hamlet, Free, Indoors (theater review)
May 16, 2007
THEATER REVIEW | 'HAMLET'
Workshop ‘Hamlet’: Free, Indoors, Uncut (He’s Still Angry)
By ANNE MIDGETTE
New York Times
It seems to take a gimmick to stage Shakespeare these days. For the last 15 years Gorilla Rep’s has been to offer free outdoor productions around New York City: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Washington Square Park; “Macbeth” in Fort Tryon Park. The company’s next project is an outdoor “Hamlet,” scheduled for 2008, and it is now holding indoor workshops of it at the Times Square Arts Center.
But bringing a play indoors removes the gimmick. Instead of following the actors around from scene to scene, the audience is in normal folding chairs in a sixth-floor studio, watching an uncut version of “Hamlet” that runs more than three hours, without an intermission. And that turns out to be just fine. Indoors or outdoors, this is plain good theater.
It helps to have a strong cast, arrayed around a note-perfect portrayal of Claudius (Laurence Weeks) and Gertrude (a superb Elizabeth McGuire): he, long-haired and sleazy, but in a way that could convincingly appeal to a certain kind of woman; she as a strong, forceful woman utterly (and perhaps willingly) duped by him.
The Polonius family was also striking, all three Asian-Americans subtly playing off stereotypes about deference to the head of the family: here it is Al Twanmo, an insurance salesman type in a shiny suit, long-winded to mask forgetfulness. Calvin Ahn was an ardent Laertes; Frances You, a lovely Ophelia. But her mad scene rang slightly hollow; she and Christopher Carter Sanderson, the director, have yet to find this sequence’s life fully.
Jacob H. Knoll was able to pull off a worthy, angry young Hamlet. Coltish and blond, he was by turn awkward and aflame, enraged at his own powerlessness in the face of the world’s perfidy.
There are still passages to be ironed out, from Dennis Baker’s overhasty Marcellus to the slight dragging of the first traveling player’s long speech (though Jy Murphy, here and as the gravedigger, was very good). But the evening created memorable characters whose stories captured the imagination, which is, beyond all gimmicks, the point of the exercise.
Mr. Sanderson clearly understands the bottom line: Vivid theater comes not from tricking out a text but trusting it. And you know, “Hamlet” is a pretty good play.
THEATER REVIEW | 'HAMLET'
Workshop ‘Hamlet’: Free, Indoors, Uncut (He’s Still Angry)
By ANNE MIDGETTE
New York Times
It seems to take a gimmick to stage Shakespeare these days. For the last 15 years Gorilla Rep’s has been to offer free outdoor productions around New York City: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Washington Square Park; “Macbeth” in Fort Tryon Park. The company’s next project is an outdoor “Hamlet,” scheduled for 2008, and it is now holding indoor workshops of it at the Times Square Arts Center.
But bringing a play indoors removes the gimmick. Instead of following the actors around from scene to scene, the audience is in normal folding chairs in a sixth-floor studio, watching an uncut version of “Hamlet” that runs more than three hours, without an intermission. And that turns out to be just fine. Indoors or outdoors, this is plain good theater.
It helps to have a strong cast, arrayed around a note-perfect portrayal of Claudius (Laurence Weeks) and Gertrude (a superb Elizabeth McGuire): he, long-haired and sleazy, but in a way that could convincingly appeal to a certain kind of woman; she as a strong, forceful woman utterly (and perhaps willingly) duped by him.
The Polonius family was also striking, all three Asian-Americans subtly playing off stereotypes about deference to the head of the family: here it is Al Twanmo, an insurance salesman type in a shiny suit, long-winded to mask forgetfulness. Calvin Ahn was an ardent Laertes; Frances You, a lovely Ophelia. But her mad scene rang slightly hollow; she and Christopher Carter Sanderson, the director, have yet to find this sequence’s life fully.
Jacob H. Knoll was able to pull off a worthy, angry young Hamlet. Coltish and blond, he was by turn awkward and aflame, enraged at his own powerlessness in the face of the world’s perfidy.
There are still passages to be ironed out, from Dennis Baker’s overhasty Marcellus to the slight dragging of the first traveling player’s long speech (though Jy Murphy, here and as the gravedigger, was very good). But the evening created memorable characters whose stories captured the imagination, which is, beyond all gimmicks, the point of the exercise.
Mr. Sanderson clearly understands the bottom line: Vivid theater comes not from tricking out a text but trusting it. And you know, “Hamlet” is a pretty good play.
posted by Jeremy at 9:38 AM
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