REVIEWS OF NCRT'S 2004 PRODUCTION OF "HAMLET"
OPENING NIGHT
by AMY STEWART
NORTH COAST JOURNAL
THURSDAY MARCH 25, 2004 VOL. XV, ISSUE 13
SO HERE'S HOW MY EVENING AT THE THEATRE began last Friday: Late in the afternoon, I said to my husband, "Don't forget, we have Hamlet tonight at North Coast Rep."
"Oh, great," he said, "The Goth Hamlet!"
"What?" I asked.
"You haven't seen the posters?" he said. "The guy with the piercings and the leather collar?"
Sure enough, when we stopped for coffee before the show, I saw the poster. The Goth Hamlet. Another misguided attempt to modernize Shakespeare. It was going to be a long night, I thought glumly.
I could not have been more wrong. Director James Floss' vision for Hamlet was nuanced and timely, but true enough to the beauty of Shakespeare's language to give the audience the feeling that they were enjoying a classic. Floss decided to amplify certain themes in Hamlet that resonate with today's audiences, such as disaffected youth and the corruption of power and money. By giving Hamlet and his peers a Goth look, he brought out Hamlet's dark broodiness and his lack of connection to his parent's generation. (To those of you who don't hang around teenagers much, Goth is a bit like punk, only more vampire-ish.) For the most part, the adults had a mod corporate look -- picture wealthy record producers, perhaps -- surrounded by "men-in black" style guards who wore suits and sunglasses and talked into their lapels.All of the actors in this production should be commended for their faculty with the language. Shakespeare is tricky to read on the page, tricky to speak aloud, and tricky, as an audience member, to keep up with. If the jokes are not delivered just right, the audience can miss them entirely. If more modern gestures and facial expressions are delivered along with florid, old-style prose, the combination can fall flat. But every member of the cast managed to hit all their notes and make Shakespeare's gorgeous language fresh and accessible.
Victor Howard was fantastic as the young Hamlet. He was full of the bravado that a kid born to wealth and power would have, but he also seemed -- true to the dark and trendy Goth appearance that he had adopted -- as if he had not come fully into his own, as if he were ruled more by demons and ghosts than by his own convictions. This directionlessness seemed to be part of Floss' interpretation of the tragedy that young Hamlet brings on his family.
Shelly Stewart's Ophelia was passionate and wild, just right for Hamlet's love interest. At times I felt myself wishing that the two main female characters -- Ophelia and Hamlet's mother, Gertrude (Suza Lambert Bowser), were not quite so weepy and helpless. At a couple of tragic moments, they seemed to just dissolve into tears, and I wished they would stop their sniffling and summon up a little rage, a little backbone. But that has less to do with the actors themselves and more to do with the ways in which their characters were written and conceived.
This is a large cast, and I lack the space to mention every actor individually, but I will say that I loved James Read as Horatio, and it was a treat to see Benoit Dens onstage again as Osric. I also enjoyed Ed Munn as King Claudius and Paul Charles Spencer as Laertes. But Spencer deserves an extra word of praise for his choreography of the fight scene -- it is indeed a treat to see some good physical theater outside of Blue Lake -- and my hat's off to Tim Gray for excellent sound design and original music. The inventive use of lighting and screens helped create a mystical and believable ghost, and the set was simple, well designed, and flexible enough to keep the action moving. The use of bunraku, a form of Japanese puppetry, for the play staged for Hamlet's family in the second act, was a terrific idea. Edward Olson choreographed that and also co-directed the play; I like to think that the many surprising laughs in the performance were due in part to his excellent sense of dark comedy.
Really, this is a terrific production, and it gives me such pleasure to recommend it wholeheartedly. Go check it out and if you've got a sullen teenager hanging around the house, here's your opportunity to introduce them to Shakespeare. Hamlet continues on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights though April 10. Admission is $12, $10 for students or seniors. Performances begin at 8 p.m. There will be just one matinee: at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 4. For reservations, group rates or more information call 442-NCRT.
NCRT's 'Hamlet' a sure fire adaptation
Theatre Review
Shane Mizer
For THE TIMES-STANDARD
NORTHERN LIGHTS Thursday March 25, 2004
In the realm of theater, purgatory is definable by having to sit through a dreadfully long and drawn out production of one of Shakespeare's plays, delivered by actors without an inkling of interpretative skills at their disposal, while simultaneously struggling to uncover what symbolism the artistic director was driving at by setting "The Taming of The Shrew" on the moon and filling the entire cast with Brazilian midgets.
Thankfully, we are not there.
We are, however, in the North Coast Repertory Theater's production of Hamlet in the present day and surrounded by a gothic counterculture riddled with angst and despair over the corrupted state of Denmark. Aside from being set in modern times, this new spin doesn't fall too far from the old tree, which is a good thing. However, the greatest reward of NCRT's Hamlet is the strong cast assembled by director James Floss.
Victor Howard rises to the occasion in the lead role of Hamlet. Capturing the character's sardonic wit and his proneness to melancholy, Howard communicates on stage a true understanding of his character's apprehensions. With an almost innate sense of timing following him from scene to scene, Howard makes the role seem easy even though the burden of making or breaking a performance of Hamlet rides heavy upon his shoulders.
Floss did well in casting Howard and even better as a director, side-stepping the stale questions that have haunted other productions of Hamlet Like: "Is Hamlet's relationship to Gertrude incestuous?" or "Is Hamlet indeed mad?" It's refreshing to see questions like these tossed aside, for they always seem to signal a weakness on the part of directors who use them too often in substitution for their own creative vision.
Rather than confusing audiences with this tired trick, Floss actually manages to develop his gothic interpretation around Shakespeare's play with minimal tweaking. One such artistic rendering is how Floss draws out the suicidal inferences in Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" speech. In this scene, Floss has Howard delivering his lines while carefully guiding the sharp knife over his exposed arms.
It must surely come as no surprise to the cast and production staff of Hamlet that audiences are going to be divided on how they absorb the sexual content of this play. It's definitely NC-17. In fact, after your jaw drops, you're bound to get cross-eyed moving your eyes back and forth in an effort to see both the reactions of those seated around you as well as what is unfolding on stage. Carrie Hudson and (especially) Dave Narloch play Hamlet's false friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, like never before. With that said, bearing witness to Narloch's androgynous performance of Guildenstern, alone, is worth the pride of admission.
Tim Gray's music score is practically a character itself, entering and exciting at different times throughout the play, and establishing or reinforcing various moods Floss mischievously wants the audience to experience. One of the most memorable moments of the play is during the "play within a play," or mousetrap scene. Attempting to incite Claudius, played by Ed Munn, into revealing his part in murdering his father, Hamlet commissions a traveling band of actors to perform "The Murder of Gonzago." Under the visionary direction of Eddie Olson, Gray's haunting music box opens up for creepy looking life-size puppets to emerge on to the stage escorted by hidden actors that reenact how Hamlet's father was killed.
What they do here is brilliant.
Polonius, the king's advisor and father of Laertes and Ophelia, is played with great skill by Vann Dart. It's to Dart's credit that Polonius is played as an open target for Hamlet's mockery, never giving us cause to wonder if Hamlet is supposed to be mad or not. Munn's portrayal of Claudius, however, is somewhat confusing. It's hard to decide if Munn is merely following Floss' direction and conforming to the stiff suit he wears or if he is just plain uncomfortable cast in the role of the slimy usurper of elder Hamlet's crown and queen.
Even though it's understandable why Floss has chosen to throw out parts of the script like the Fortinbras subplot in order to save time and promote his artistic vision, there are gray areas that spring up as a result. Primarily, how much does Hamlet care for Ophelia in Floss' version? Shelley Stewart shows us that the combination of Hamlet's refusal and her father's death are enough to send a fragile Ophelia into madness, but the blending of scenes by Floss done early on in the play cut across valuable corners necessary to swallow the fullness of Stewart's performance
One argument could be made that Ophelia's passion for Hamlet's is not supposed to be reciprocated in this gothic production. Maybe, if we didn't see Hamlet crouching over Ophelia and professing to Laertes his undying love for his dead sister.
Hand's down the excitement the actors generate on stage during the final scene as Laertes and Hamlet duel to the death is riveting to the point of forgetting any mishaps along the way.
Hamlet gets heavy
The Lumberjack
The Scene
Lucas O. CebulskiLumberjack Staff Writer
The North Coast Repertory Theatre is currently performing a very interesting and entertaining version of "Hamlet," one of William Shakespeare's most well-known tragedies.
Shakespeare plays are notoriously versatile in where they can be set and Director James Floss chose a modern setting (probably mid to late '90s) for this particular production. The most notable variation is the introduction of goth culture through several prominent characters in the play.
Hamlet, played by Victor Howard, is goth to the max. I'm talking black trench coat, boots, spiked dog collar, heavy eye makeup and listening to Nine Inch Nails with a surly attitude. Ophelia (Sherry Stewart), Rosencrantz (David Narloch) and Guildenstern (Carrie Hudson) are equally leather clad and spiked.
This goth aspect emphasizes the gap between the younger, more rebellious characters and the older characters. When Polonius (Vann Dart) is lecturing Ophelia on her relationship with Hamlet she puts on her earphones and ignores him in typical teenage style. I've seen Hamlet performed several times, but this is the first production that really made the complete lack of understanding between parents and children obvious. By using the goth theme, the earphones and a lot of eye rolling, this production eased away from the feeling of a disconnected and overused medieval tragedy in a land far, far away. This version feels more like the dysfunctional family down the street. A feeling that relates much better to rookie Shakespeare fans.
All goth aside, the acting in this production was great. Howard played the manic depressive Hamlet to a tee. One minute he'd be enraged, frothing at the mouth, half in tears, and the next he's smiling like the joker and cracking wise. It was really a bit creepy the way he switched so easily between the two personas. And the scene where Hamlet confronts his mother, Queen Gertrude (Suza Lambert Bowser), is so intense it's worth the ticket by itself.
Bowser wins the prize for best acting in this play. Her portrayal of Gertrude was stellar. She is carefree, happy and a bit drunk when the play starts but as situations unfold she becomes more and more guilt-ridden. With every little trick Hamlet plays, Bowser adds another layer of worry to Gertrude's demeanor. All the while she's playing the loving, caring mother of a disturbed son. When Hamlet finally confronts her with all her sins, she lets loose all the feelings that she'd previously only alluded to with body language and inflection.
Bowser plays opposite King Claudius (Ed Munn) and that might be why Munn's version of Claudius seems a little tame. Munn wasn't bad but he didn't seem as nervous as he ought to have been in most of the scenes. His confession in the church was convincing but was overshadowed by Hamlet's display of rationale for not killing him while he prays.
The final scene where Hamlet duels with Laertes (Paul Charles Spencer) was excellently choreographed. Spencer, who both acted in and choreographed the scene, did a pretty cool job. The sword fight was all over the place. They were jumping over sword thrusts, doing somersaults, two-handed parrying, the works. At one point both Laertes and Hamlet are disarmed and they get into fisticuffs. They did just about any crazy stunt they could do without wires and a blue screen.
When most everyone is dead in the last scene (if I just spoiled it for you, you should have done your homework in high school), Horatio (James Read) lets everyone have it. For the majority of the play Read does a great job as a supporting character but he really shines in the last scene. He is racked with sobs for the dead Hamlet and furious at the behavior that has lead to the tragic end of more than half the characters in the play. When Read looks out at the audience, all red-faced and tearful, you can't help but pay close attention to the moral of the story.
Hamlet will be playing Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. March 18 through April 10. There will be one matinee at 2 p.m. on April 4. Tickets are $12 general and $10 for students. For further information call 442-NCRT.
THE HUMBOLDT BEACON
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REVIEW
THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2004
There's something Gothic in Denmark
By EMMA BREACAIN
Beacon Correspondent
Remember that guy from your high school English class? He sat in the back row, scrawling poems about love and death in his journal, carving symbols into his arm, looking up only to pick the occasional fight with the teacher over, say, the Interpretation of Donne's themes. He failed phys. ed. three times because he always skipped, opting instead to smoke clove cigarettes behind the cafeteria. This pale, surly creature who refused to take off his black trench coat no matter how hot to the weather, he was for you.
Now. What if that kid was the Prince of Denmark?
As one in the audience exclaimed before the lights went down on opening night at North Coast Repertory Theatre's Hamlet, "Of course Hamlet is goth!"
The young prince is melancholy, death-obsessed and questioning his own sanity. With good reason. Dad, the king, just died. Worse than that, his brother, Hamlet's uncle, might have murdered him. And Mom may be in on it. If there is an appropriate time for sulking, this is so it.
It's hard to keep a play that's been performed for four centuries fresh, making it tradition to place William Shakespeare's works in untraditional settings. But director James Floss' vision here is especially rewarding, for while the goth scene has been around for fully two generations and even has whole mall shops devoted to it, it is infrequently acknowledged outside its own hermetically sealed cultural niche.
Glowering from a poster outside the theater, all lip stud and spike collar and Cleopatra eyeliner, Victor Howard is off-putting as Hamlet. But on stage, Howard makes the prince likable and surprisingly accessible. We feel for him as he struggles to determine whether his uncle/stepfather Claudius is indeed the murderer. After all, he's not going to take revenge on a man he doesn't know is guilty.
As King Claudius, Ed Munn has polished to perfection the role of the smarmy, Teflon politician you're dying to smack. Suza Lambert Bowser plays the fabulously glamorous Queen Gertrude with far more sympathy and depth than that character is usually afforded.
Hamlet's doomed love interest, Ophelia, is played by Shelley Stewart. Ophelia pouts and whines and rolls her eyes, mercurial as Hamlet. But where Hamlet lets us in, Ophelia has us, the audience, locked out. It soon becomes apparent that this is most likely because Ophelia checked out before we arrived, and her descent into madness was merely the exclamation with original point to a long story.
Her brother, Laertes, is brought to life with unexpected tenderness by Paul Charles Spencer.
Hamlet enlists Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to help him uncover the truth, and you've never seen the famous duo quite like this. Playing the celebrated, slightly bumbling courtiers, David Narloch and Carrie Hudson are so perfectly natural in their flamboyant costumes and out rageous antics, it seems they simply wandered out of a showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and onto Wiley's elegantly minimalist stage, deciding to stick around and get the party started.
Introducing the play, NCRT Artistic Director Michael Thomas said, "It's not your mother's Hamlet." If it's not yet obvious that Floss is not worried about creating a crowd pleaser, it will be when you see... well... Hamlet's maybe possibly kinda sorta almost bisexual. Then again, he could just be open-minded. (Again, not everyone will love it. Overheard on the way out: "Well, I wouldn't say I enjoyed it. But I appreciated it.")
Floss' vision of Hamlet is rife with original touches from the first moments. And have you ever seen a skateboard in a Shakespeare play? The unabashed monkeying with time periods is like a theatrical in-joke.
This reviewer had exactly one complaint, and it's a small one. The special effects used to create the terrifying ghost of Hamlet's father, well, it's... rinky dink. It looks inexpensive, hastily planned and it inspires embarrassment in the audience on behalf of those involved, At that point, who can even hear what the ghost has to say? I hope this is something they're still working on.
Complete with an industrial score and Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson (obligatory) playing during intermission, Hamlet flows like a music video. This would be dangerous indeed if the cast didn't have the chops to back up this abundance of style.
Fortunately, this very professional cast is obviously at home with the Shakespearean language and the intensity of the story.
Howard is confident enough not to grandstand, casually tossing off Hamlet's ultrafamous "to be or not to be..." and "alas, poor Yorrick..." soliloquies with measured understatement.
This is a goth retelling of a very goth story, remember. A happy ending would be out of the question.
The finale is truly breathtaking, arid it's hard to know whether to credit that to Floss, his cast, or of course Mr. Shakespeare.
Expect this version of "Hamlet" to be remembered among NCRT's finest accomplishments.