Review: HAMLET at Alabama Shakespeare Festival

There is no play more iconic than Hamlet. So colossal is its reputation that the image of a man dressed in black holding a skull has come to represent the entire art form of live theatre. But who better to tackle such a monumental play than one of the nation's premiere Shakespeare companies, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival?

The best word I can think of to describe Hamlet at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival is "standard." There is a standard-issue Hamlet (played by Grant Chapman) feigning madness in the castle. The actors' interpretations of the script are typical for modern productions. The stagecraft is generic and gets the job done of telling the story. This Hamlet is standard, and there is nothing wrong with a standard production of a play.

When director Brian McEleney does innovate, it is at a surface level. A few roles are gender-swapped (Polonius, Horatio, and Rosencrantz), and the setting is moved to the 1930s. But these changes do not encourage the actors or audience to dig deeper into the text to find some new insight. McEleney plays it safe with this Hamlet. There is value in that; traditionalists will find the familiarity comforting, and newcomers will not be distracted by avant-garde or bizarre artistic choices.

Playing it safe, has its downsides, though. While McEleney's direction makes the show work, it also prevents it from rising to greatness. The blocking was greatly inhibited by objects (a grand piano in the first half of the play and a round bonne settee for part of the second half). These obstacles often got in the way of the actors' movement and character development. (It is often extremely difficult to create an emotional connection between actors when they are talking at opposite sides of a grand piano.) When the furniture is removed in Act IV, the staging greatly opened up, and the show improved.

Another hindrance to the staging was Jeff Behm's set design, which was a carryover from the company's previous production, Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood. Having some audience members sit on stage served no purpose and took up valuable real estate. Also, the 12-foot-high upstage platform — while reminiscent of the upstage balcony in Shakespeare's original Globe Theatre — was awkwardly used, especially when a character on the platform interacted with people who were elsewhere in the theater. The distance  and/or height difference was alienating.

As Hamlet, Chapman has a grasp of Shakespeare's language, and his performance is energetic. Strangely, though, it is at odds with Shakespeare's own advice to actors in Act III of Hamlet. Chapman did "saw the air too much with [his] hand" and failed to "hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature". Put in modern terms, Chapman's performance is less naturalistic and his mannerisms more exaggerated than what was seen in his castmates. Chapman's performance was also inhibited by the tendency for his soliloquies to stop the action cold so that Chapman could deliver a Very Important Speech to the audience in his best Actor Voice. The performance felt like a homage to a bygone era of Shakespearean acting and not an exploration of one of the psychologically deepest characters ever to grace the stage.

The cast does create some fine moments (mostly involving the female actors) that make the play feel personal. The scene in which Polonius (played by Greta Lambert) imparts parental advice to the departing Laertes had the feel of a real family, which made Laertes's later grief at dead mother and sister more believable and touching. Jihan Haddad's mad Ophelia was the most emotional moment of the play, and I felt endless pity for the character as she walked barefoot in a snowfield picking imaginary flowers to give to the other characters on stage.

The pairing of Kanoa Sims as Gertrude and Stephen Thorne as Claudius was the best casting in the production. Every movement from Sims exudes authority and a regal bearing. She is every inch a queen, and Gertrude retains her dignity, even during the trauma of watching Polonius get killed in her chamber. Thorne portrays Claudius as a realistic politician who is treats Hamlet's behavior as a political problem that needs to be corrected for the sake of Denmark. Thorne's interpretation avoids making Claudius a one-dimensional villain and results in an oddly relatable performance.

Alexa Behm's costume design is the most memorable part technical aspect of the production. The costumes of the members of the Danish court exude elegance, and the pairing of Gertrude in her red gown and Claudius with his red sash made the two look like a European power couple. The guards' costumes were authentic for the interwar period and set these commoners apart from the upper-class characters.