Review: Hamlet (at Boggy Creek Cemetary) by Black Swan Productions

by Michael Meigs
Published on October 28, 2010

You have to earn your trip to Shakespeare's imagined world by mentally surpressing the insistent, incessant sounds of Texas on the go. These players make that possible, always.

Justin Scalise as Hamlet is intent and impressive.  AustinLiveTheatre had that to say and more in the September 25  ALT review of essentially this same production as presented downtown at the Scottish Rite Theatre -- in all too short a run and with a curtailed final week. This staging is by Black Swan Events.  The swan is new hatched and because of the surprisingly poorly attendance at the  Scottish Rite staging, it's new fledged, as well.  Perhaps to …

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Review: Hamlet by Black Swan Productions

by Michael Meigs
Published on September 25, 2010

See what this focused, well-spoken, taut player does with the character who has haunted him. They jointly inhabit a swift and moving performance.

Those lustrous eyes, that bony frame, that complexion sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought -- many of us believe that Justin Scalise was born to play Hamlet.   He has certainly trained for Shakespeare and for this role, in New Orleans, in England, and for the past three years in Austin.  We have seen him as Bottom, Feste, Adam & Silvius, Don John, Mercutio and Lucio.  And even Hamlet, freeze-dried, for Austin Shakespeare's …

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