Jon Tracy, making his debut as the new artistic director for the Marin Shakespeare company, has thrown down his version of Hamlet with a vengeance. Tracy is not going to deliver conventional “Summer Shakespeare,” and he’s letting us know it. It’s all to the good.
Gone are the sonorous voices, the aria-like soliloquys, the exaggerated gestures intended to clarify obscure language, the dull parts, the expected, and the trite. It’s OUT with the old Shakespeare and IN with the new!
Don’t get me wrong: Tracy’s Hamlet remains Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but there is nothing of it that has not undergone a sea change. Sequences are rearranged, characters cast across gender lines (Laertes is Ophelia’s sister), staging is defiant.
It begins with the Ghost of Hamlet’s father as the engine that starts things off. This is a rearrangement of the script, but it is not unprecedented.
But never before have I seen a Hamlet who appears . . . with a smile. Whaaaat? Okay, he’s dressed in the usual iconic black. And he is, obviously. depressed. But, for once, he is not morose. His depression, adolescent in its intensity, is manifested as intense rage. When Claudius greets him as “…our cousin Hamlet, and our son….” he responds, “A little more than kin but less than kind” with a manic smile that makes Mack the knife seem like Winnie-the-Pooh. This is no sad sack, indecisive Hamlet: this is a young man capable of murder and we see it instantly. He is smarter than everybody else, angrier than everybody else, more capable than everybody else, and he is very, very pissed off!
Among many interesting experiments, Tracy has staged many of the scenes with a different constellation of characters on stage than is usually set down. So when the Prince breaks into the first line of the first famous soliloquy (“O that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew”) he is not expressing a desire to die or commit suicide. We know this because he says it with a sly grin and a gesture right in the face of Claudius, as if he could melt him on the spot, Harry Potter style. Wow.
When he encounters the Ghost of his father, King Hamlet, we see his mind topple. This Ghost is some piece of work. First off, the familial resemblance of father and son is startling, and Tracy has angled his actors to make it even more so. The father is monstrous, and manipulates his son with vicious emotional blackmail. Michael Torres plays the Ghost, as well as King Claudius, and he is extraordinary. Casting the same actor reminds us that these men were brothers, perhaps even twins. But Torres differentiates them so masterfully that I, for one, had to look at the program before I realized I was watching the same actor. The Ghost of King Hamlet is monstrous, cruel, frightening whereas Claudius seems more like a nebbish. Claudius is usually played as a man of great competence, but Torres takes him in an opposite direction. This Claudius is a weak, pathetic, scarecrow of a loser in the grip of a sleazy lust, embarrassed and barely effectual. It works.
Other characters, Ophelia in particular, are also reimagined. I could say much about all of them. But I want to leave the reader some room for discovery. I want to whet your appetite, not leave you too satiated by the time you get to your seat (and you SHOULD get a seat). But be assured that all of this company shines: désirée freda plays the part of Ophelia with more sophistication and intelligence than confused innocence and she will break your heart. Bridgette Loriaux as Gertrude also surprises. And so it goes for everybody in the company. I’d mention Polonius and the rest as well, but enough, already: I must be brief.
Shakespeare lovers familiar with Hamlet will be astonished at Tracy’s new and unsuspected discoveries. Newcomers to Hamlet will get the story well enough. All will find that the evening passes quickly in a satisfying parade of laughs, horror, and philosophical intrigue.
By all means, get thee to Marin!
“Hamlet” plays at Marin Shakespeare Company through July 16, 2023. For further information, click here.
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Rating: ***** (For an explanation of Theatrestorm’s rating scale, click here.)
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“Hamlet,” by William Shakespeare, adapted by Jon Tracy. Director: Jon Tracy. Choreographer: Bridgette Loriaux. Costume Designers: Miyuki Bierlein, Luisa Frasconi. Fight Director: Davie Maier. Lighting Designer: Jon Tracy. Set Designer: Nina Ball. Sound Designers & Composers: Ben Neuphrat, Lady Zen.
Cast:
Rinabeth Apostol: Laertes/Rosencrantz/Clown Queen. Stevie DeMott: Horatio/Guildenstern. désirée freda: Ophelia.Bridgette Loriaux: Gertrude. Nick Musleh: Hamlet. Richard Pallaziol: Polonius. Michael Torres: Claudius/Ghost of King Hamlet. Lady Zen: Clown King.
TheatreStorm 