William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Jeremy Seghers
Starring Anthony Pyatt JR, Marion Marsh, Landon Price, Brett Carson
In the Wings Productions
Studio Theatre, Orlando FL</strong>
We’ve all been here. Your uncle murders dad, marries mom and bluffs down some Norwegian poseur with a fakey French name. Life is all so unfair, and what can you do? You’re just a college student on a budget and your knife isn’t very big and you’re breaking up with your girlfriend and the only way to ditch those student loans is invade England or let that Norwegian guy use your country to sneak into Poland and hope he doesn’t hang around. Well, there are some options: you can philosophize, write moody poetry, and practice your construction tool dueling skills. You never know when these skills might come in handy.
While this classic clocks in at an Elizabethan butt numbing three hours, it’s one of best “Hamlet’s” I’ve seen. Someone mentioned this is a first folio version, and it seems to have lots more lines than I recall. Yeah, the set is minimal and there’s an attempt to set a time and place with inconsistent Southern Accents and class divisive costuming, but the performances and casting are outstanding. Anthony Pyatt Jr. is a slick and vital hamlet, and he never wavers when playing this supposed wavery charter. He has a particular gleam in his eye during the final fight sequence, and rather than use the standard rapiers he and Laertes (Steven C Fox) slug it out with pick axes. Yow. Landon Price plays an apologetic King Claudius; he seems to almost care about Hamlet even as he schemes to politely have him offed in a far away land. His consort Gertrude (Marsh) is elegant and you almost want to believe she’s innocent of any shenanigans even if she has some trouble with her high heels. Other outstanding actors include Brett Carson as a rather comic Polonius, Holly Frost as the flighty Ophelia, and Bruce Ryan Costella as a very intellectual and cringing Horatio.
The set was some minimal risers even with its wobbly back wall and crashing candles. All this gave a potent graveyard scene, and the overall production took some innovative and unexpected turns. The scene in Gertrude’s room was brutal and scary, the famous soliloquy had an on stage audience, and you could almost smell Larry Stallings’s Ghostly graveyard suit as he spirited around the stage. Best of all, a Pinteresqe leak in the air conditioning added a modernist tinge to this classic, and there was another show ready to go up as we left – “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).” A few folks with iron butts were sticking around for another 90 minutes of iambic action, but I was fading fast and felt I had gotten full use out of my overpriced parking ticket. If this company could get some decent seating, they could give that other better known company a run for its money.
For more information, please visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/In-the-Wings-Productions/176913645667120
