Review: HAMLET at Exodus Ensemble

Never shying away from a challenge, the Exodus Ensemble’s latest offering tackles what is regularly considered to be one of the cornerstones of the western canon and of high school senior English classes alike: Hamlet. Even for seasoned, wholly Shakespearean companies, the piece can be daunting — the sheer volume of the text, the representation of the human condition, and above all, making the epic accessible to a contemporary audience make the play intimidating, to say the least — but, as always, the Exodus Ensemble proves themselves more than game. With their characteristic creativity and intensity, the company succeeds in reinventing one of the greats, and in an immensely clever, heartbreaking, and entertaining fashion.

Though presented by only four actors and in just about two and a half hours, the broadest strokes of the story remain intact — student Hamlet returns home after the unexpected death of their (here, her — a thoroughly dynamic and tragic Bailey James) father, grappling with grief and distrust of her uncle, Claudius (the always excellent Patrick Agada, who, in true Shakespearean fashion also represents the Ghost); her girlfriend, O (grounded and deeply human work from Emily Neifert) and childhood friend, Horatio (a likeable and vulnerable Mason Azbill) witness and attempt, in varying degrees, to support her through this crisis, though Hamlet, of course, through supernatural intervention quickly becomes suspicious of her uncle’s involvement in her father’s death. One of the joys of attending Exodus Ensemble productions is seeing the company of actors work so intimately but in such wildly different contexts; it was delightful to see Agada and Azbill take on vastly different roles than they inhabited in Exodus’s recent (and very well done) Cyrano; it’s a testament to the range of all of the actors in this crew and is certainly motivation to attend multiple productions.

This production very smartly cuts and combines characters (Polonius and Laertes’s absence increases Ophelia’s agency; Horatio shows shades of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) and riffs on key plot points in very clever ways — my companion for this particular performance is also a long time Shakespeare buff and we commented to each other at intermission that often the mark of a strong adaptation is how smart it makes the audience feel; far from a line by line translation, the degree of intentionality around shifts and modernizations were both massively helpful in aiding audience tracking of the plot. None of the modifications or modernizations felt too on the nose, but rather allowed for folks well versed in the original text to have moments of “…YES, I see what they did there”; the approach to the play within a play, originally The Murder of Gonzago, is particularly effective. The production also leans heavily upon another New Mexican Shakespearean adaptation, Breaking Bad, to great effect.

A key component of Hamlet that can be very difficult for contemporary performers and audiences alike is the titular character’s “madness” – pages upon pages of (often rather detached) scholarly discussion have been written about how much of it is actual madness versus how much of it is performance; Shakespeare, though not lacking the experience of grief, certainly, but lacking modern language for expressing it, only gives so much in the text. As this production leans heavily into our modern understanding of grief, depression, and general mental health issues, it creates the very accessible and understandable contemporary world in which this Hamlet dwells. The universality of Shakespeare is a common refrain within the community of theatres that produce the Bard, but it can be common for productions of Hamlet, so overwhelmed by the enormity of the story, to lose sight of the humanity of all characters, but particularly our titular prince – this production rivals other sensitively written contemporary adaptations such as James Ijames’s Fat Ham in terms of utilizing a modern understanding of loss and the grieving process to drive the story. 

The pacing of the production is generally quite solid; due to some of the shifts and cuts leading to the play’s final sequence of violence, arriving at that moment was admittedly initially a bit jarring but quite well sold by the actors. The CCA space is, as always, well utilized as well; it seems the Ensemble is really challenging themselves on what is possible within the venue, because I was surprised by some of the new things they implemented within the run of the show. There were also some creative movement sequences that I had not previously seen in the context of otherwise very grounded Exodus productions that were unexpected and impactful.

Albuquerque Awards - Live Stats

Best Musical - Top 3

1. SOMETHING ROTTEN! (Santa Fe Playhouse)

20.8% of votes

2. MATILDA THE MUSICAL (Cardboard Playhouse Theatre Company)

17.2% of votes

3. BARE: A POP OPERA (Musical Theatre Southwest)

10.2% of votes

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