A 'HAMLET' in Search of a Better Production

Hamlet, Shakespeare’s inscrutable prince of Denmark, famously describes his native country as “a prison,” and for many critics this observation gets at the heart of the play’s mystery—how has this sensitive, witty, brilliant young man become stuck in a tawdry revenge tragedy?

It is therefore both appropriate and disappointing that the Hamlet currently playing at Spotlighters Theatre in Baltimore has dropped its star into a production that on the whole is unworthy of his talents. Michael Leicht’s Hamlet is as good a performance as you will see all year, and though several of his fellows approach his level, too many more spend their time on stage struggling to make sense of such Shakespearean fundamentals as blank verse and scansion.

The result is a production that drags—despite fairly heavy cutting by director Phil Gallagher (including intermission, the running time is about three hours)—and is frequently unclear in the details of plot and character. (To give but one glaring example, why has the speech in which Claudius prays for forgiveness been cut, yet the scene in which Polonius yammers on and on to Reynaldo been preserved?) Had I not already been familiar with the play, I suspect I would have been baffled by large chunks of the action, particularly those in which Hamlet cedes the spotlight to less compelling characters.

Let me reemphasize just how good Leicht is in the central role. A tremendously physical actor, he plays Hamlet as a vigorous, fiercely attentive man—a man of action, in fact, whose superior intelligence owes as much to paying attention as to brainpower.  Indeed, his notorious inability to act at crucial moments in the play—most obviously when called upon to avenge his father’s murder—seems the result of having paid too close attention.  The closer he observes those around him, the more their perceived failings and hypocrisies repulse him, until any action whatsoever seems futile.

Yet this is also a playful Hamlet, one who delights in meeting people even momentarily capable of matching wits with him (whether they be itinerant actors, old friends, or grave diggers). It is when they fail to give him what he craves—not only love, but genuine fellowship—that we see the frustration mounting in Leicht. Smiles become grimaces, gentle nudges turn forceful and sharp, and he paces the stage like a predator behind bars, reminding us that Hamlet, that most sensitive of heroes, is also one of the most dangerous men Shakespeare ever created, and he leaves in his wake an astonishing trail of corpses.

Nor does Leicht hide Hamlet’s own hypocrisies, particularly with regard to his brutal treatment of his ex-lover Ophelia (this production does not answer the question of whether their love was sexual)—his misogynistic rants are worse than anything her oppressive father and brother inflict upon her. As Ophelia, Jenn Mikulski hits all the standard notes—she weeps when Hamlet berates her and peers through crazed eyes when she goes mad. But I found little in her performance to suggest why Hamlet should have singled her out for his affection. Even the dimwitted Polonius wonders as much. “Lord Hamlet is a prince out thy star,” he proclaims ... and unfortunately I found myself agreeing with him.

The two actors who come nearest to Leicht—in their technique as well as their intensity—are Sherrionne Brown as Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, and Gallagher, who casts himself as King Claudius, that “incestuous, murderous, damned Dane.” (Gallagher also plays the ghost of Hamlet’s father, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s wise for the director of such a complex and challenging work to so divide his focus—it’s not unreasonable to think he would have produced a tighter, crisper show had he been free to watch every scene from the audience.)

As Claudius, however, he exudes confidence and gives Leicht a sufficiently villainous adversary, though his British accent (Gallagher is originally from the UK) is a bit distracting considering no one else in the company consistently attempts one. (Michael Donlan’s Laertes occasionally slips into what sounds like a Scottish brogue, but that only further muddies the regional waters.) As for Brown, she is particularly affecting in Gertrude’s emotional “closet” scene with her son, balancing outrage, fear, and maternal tenderness even as Hamlet abuses her.

As Polonius, Richard Peck in particular seems to fight the blank verse, disrupting the natural rhythms of Shakespeare’s poetry with unnatural pauses and placing stresses in awkward places. Whether this is because he needs to review the script—at the performance I attended, he was clearly struggling to recall his lines—or simply a character choice, the result is the same: a difficult-to-follow stream of “hems” and “hmphs.”

The remainder of the cast is more or less uneven. Melainie Eifert makes a credible Guildenstern, but Joel Loukus seems disinterested as Rosencrantz, and their matching costumes and choreography don’t provide enough laughs to justify the effort. Carl Stevens and Victoria Mansuri overplay their several roles—the broadness works for the Player King and Queen, who are supposed to be amateur actors, but seems forced on the two grave diggers, whose comic touch should be lighter; the same could be said of Jeff Brone’s foppish Osric. As Horatio, Robert Scott Hitcho reads his lines in the same flat tone throughout.

In his director’s notes, Gallagher writes that “this is not a production for the high-browed purist,” reminding us that Shakespeare wrote his plays “for rich and poor alike.” Yet as best I could tell, Gallagher’s attempts to make the play more “accessible” to a contemporary audience are limited to his sound design. The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” begins and ends the show (is it relevant because Hamlet’s costume is black?), and—in one of the most jarring sequences I have ever experienced in the theatre—Johnny Cash cuts off Hamlet to lead us to intermission; instead of “To be or not to be,” the first act ends with “I hurt myself today to see if I still feel.” During intermission, Alison Krauss alternates with Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

I’m sorry, but an eclectic soundtrack does not make you a populist ... or whatever the opposite of “high-browed” is. Perhaps had the actors worn modern dress, the song choices would at least have seemed coherent, but no, Helenmary Ball’s costumes are entirely traditional (and gorgeous—by far the most successful design element in the production). Instead, the sound design reinforces the impression that this Hamlet is a patchwork of styles not because of some directorial concept (talk about a “high-browed” notion), nor even because the play itself contains—as Gallagher aptly puts it—“a full range of dramatic moods,” but rather because too little thought went into the interpretation at all. In this Hamlet more than in most, there is the prince of Denmark and then there is everyone else.

Hamlet is playing at the Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre, located at 817 Saint Paul Street in Baltimore, on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., through August 9^th.  There is one Thursday performance on August 6^th. Tickets are $18 ($15 for seniors, students, and BTA members). For more information, visit www.spotlighters.org or call 410-752-1225.

 

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