"Hamlet" is one of the world's most famous and most performed plays. Considered by many to be the pinnacle of classical drama, it has been handled by actors such as Sir Laurence Olivier and Mel Gibson. As such, it can be difficult to bring anything new or revolutionary to the well-worn story of familial murder and delayed revenge.
In placing the audience on the stage along with the players, Actors' Shakespeare Project (www.actorsshakespeareproject.org) literally turns the action around and, in so doing, succeeds in at least one way in achieving this oft-reached-for goal.
As the audience and the actors are on the same level physically, they are able to interact in a far more intimate and immediate way. In fact, the very act of mounting the stage to take their general admission seats involves the audience in their own production right off (which is why the play will not allow late seating, so be sure to arrive early).
With no microphones, the actors often have to shout over the live musical score (which is provided by on- and off-stage performances on instruments ranging from spinet to didgeridoo) and the occasional external noise. But they can also whisper and approach their listeners very directly.
Instead of appealing to God for forgiveness, the murderous King Claudius (played commandingly and considerably by Johnny Lee Davenport) asks the audience. And most of Hamlet's own soliloquies are directed at particular seats instead of the decorously vaunted theater itself.
In this way, the seats and balconies of the theater become parts of the set, which is otherwise made up of movable scaffolds and the occasional set piece, such a dining table that is wheeled in for festive scenes, or a removed section of stage that serves as the setting for the "comical-pastoral-tragical" gravediggers' scene.
But that is not the only bright point in this smoky and often dimly lit (at times only by flashlights) re-enactment. The characters and lines themselves are handled in very different and revealing ways that consistently succeed in their efforts to "suit the action to the word; the word to the action."
Though ASP artistic director Benjamin Evett puts a bit too much ham into Hamlet and could at times take his character's own advice to speak "more trippingly," he explains the overacting away at play's end as a manifestation of the made-up madness of the thumb-sucking, pants-dropping, dramatically pausing, troubled prince.
His mother, Gertrude (Marya Lowry), is an elegant cleft-hearted queen who is torn between her re-youthed love with her second king and her enduring compassion for her stunted son. Professorial and "pro-verbial" Polonius (Robert Walsh) runs Denmark from behind screens, using a great deal of words to say little, but looking good as he does it. His son Laertes (Edward O'Blenis) leaves in the first scene as a humbled and somewhat bumbling youth but returns after the intermission as a man whose direction and dedication to his cause serve as a lesson and foil to Hamlet himself. Hamlet's hip companion Horatio (Willie E. Teacher) also serves as a mirror to the prince, often getting closer than other productions have dared let him. Marianna Bassham's Ophelia falls to fear early on and eventually succumbs to a true madness that breaks everyone's heart.
Among the many doubled and tripled roles, Ken Cheeseman's ghost of Hamlet's father demonstrates the tree from whence the dramatic apple fell, but his gravedigger rocks in the box, bringing necessary levity to a deep and dark scene. The other multifaceted gem is Sarah Newhouse, who swings from a buttoned-down Guildenstern to a fawning and flirtatious female Osric. Such bold characterizations and relational explorations add even more depth to this grave story.
As the characters enter and exit from all parts of the theater, using the balcony to represent heaven and trap doors to allow descents into "the other place," the audience is treated to a variety of perspectives.
When the players come to "catch the conscious of a king," we are able to watch not only the play they put on but also the guilty king's reactions to it. And when the two heirs square off, you best keep your feet behind the blue safety line, lest they be removed from you in an impressive dueling scene.
All in all, the ASP version of "Hamlet" is a good way to come in from "a nipping and eager air" and to re-examine an old tale from a very new angle.
(Hamlet will be performed at the Strand Theatre (543 Columbia Road, Dorchester, Mass.) through November 12. For tickets, go to www.actorssheakespeareproject.org.)
Matt Robinson is a freelance writer and educator from Brookline, Mass.
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