Review: Hamlet by The City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Director Jeff Hinkle and the City Theatre cast led by Aaron Black as Hamlet give us a gripping up-tempo version of the famous events in Elsinore. Elapsed playing time from the first challenge on the battlements to Hamlet's dying gasp, "The rest -- is silence" is just a little more than two and a half hours.
That fits the play well within the max bounds for today's young movie-going public and gives them the bonus of a break in the middle for snacks and bathroom. The nearly full house for opening night offered the encouraging prospect of a well attended four-week run to open City's fourth season.
It's a good ride, with some surprises along the way.
Aaron Black paints a two-speed Hamlet. From the first, alone or speaking to us directly in his monologues, Black establishes the prince's intelligence. His deft timing and effectively calibrated pauses show Hamlet's mind at work and establish a bond with the audience.
In company with any but Horatio or the player king, however, Black speeds up, provokes and antagonizes. His diction is precise but as his lines move toward rant, he seems to be less the master of his own thoughts. They burst forth in hectoring images.
Although in appearance and demeanor somewhere close to 30 years of age, Black busts the rest of the world with the selfish hatefulness of an adolescent. His pleasure in aggression seems more Hotspur than Hamlet.
Cast members are all, save one, of similar age, which is frequent in Austin theatre and a given that we accept with our willing suspension of disbelief. Hamlet and Claudius look as if they could have been classmates -- a casting decision that in effect reinforces the Oedipal implications of the story. Tim Brown as Claudius is a big, worried puppy, ill at ease in his new kingly functions and touchingly dependent upon his queen. The fine actress Christy Smith as Gertrude, dignified and confident, dotes on both her boys.
A striking and successful variation on traditional casting is Hinkle's decision to cast Jeannie Harris as Polonius, king's counselor and parent to Laertes (Collin Bjork) and to Ophelia (Shannon Davis). Harris presents Polonius both as Mom, tweaking Laertes' nose as he kneels to petition Claudius for permission to leave the court, and as the razor-keen counselor, almost a regent for the floundering Claudius.
In Harris' mouth the "few precepts" admonitions to Laertes don't come across as vague-minded expostulation but rather as motherly teasing -- up to the slight break of emotion in the last lines, "This above all: to thine own self be true,/ And it must follow, as the night the day,/ Thou canst not then be false to any man."
The subsequent grilling of Ophelia ("What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?") has new resonance. The discussion of the prince's tenders of love becomes a mother-daughter lesson from a woman power broker, a realist who has survived intrigues and given little away.
Philology suggests that Harris could properly have been rebaptised "Polonia". . .but farewell it; I will use no art.
The most kingly presence on stage was John McNeill as the head of the players, both in his speech for Hecuba and in The Mousetrap. McNeill's assurance in make believe contrasted with Claudius's worry and with Hamlet's pushy pursuit of revenge.
The setting is Denmark in 1935, for no particular reason other than perhaps to explain the garage sale furniture used for the palace. Action takes place on a couple of generic platforms in City's small space. Costumes are generally undistinguished and in some cases strange. Tuxedos are fine for court revels but appear seriously out of place for a funeral. Costume choices for the female Polonius are gratifying exceptions -- Harris dresses with power and taste, and the crisp cut of this counselor's dress is considerably more military than garments worn by the guards, by Hamlet's ghost or by Fortinbras.
The sharp action and the quality of the acting predominate over other production values. Shannon Davis captures Ophelia's quiet disappointment and then her antic madness; Collin Bjork as the returning Laertes is hot as flame and direct as a rapier.
MacArthur Moore menaces as the ghost of the murdered Hamlet and in a similar persona takes charge as Fortinbras in the final scene. I had eagerly anticipated his portrayal of the gravedigger, remembering his electrifying performance last year as mad Uncle Gabe in August Wilson's Fences.
Instead, the opening of the funeral scene fell flat. Moore was posted in the grave at the back of the platforms and he had to carry the opening of the scene solo.
It's awkward, though possible, to justify an extended two-voiced dialogue with oneself. It's even more awkward for the audience when the actor breaks character with impromptu remarks and seeks to enlist them in that dialogue. Moore might have managed it with force of character if he'd been positioned much closer to us. He pushed us for the answer to his quibble, "Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?" and I tried to remember the replies of the second clown ("Marry, now I can tell . . . Mass, I cannot tell"). Perhaps a crew member somewhere behind us could have called out those perplexed replies. Hamlet and Horatio arrived promptly, however, and saved us from further embarrassment.
City Theatre's Hamlet will carry you along its boisterous flow. Aaron Black is energetic and assertive, if not always very likeable. Destiny arrives at a gallop, and the corpse-strewn stage in the final scene reminds us that a fury to live is more likely to miscarry than to succeed.
EXTRA
Click to view program for City Theatre's Hamlet (.pdf file, 2MB)
Hamlet
by William Shakespeare
City Theatre Company
