|
Regional Reviews: Philadelphia Hamlet
In this contemporary dress version of Shakespeare, Hamlet is the prototypical angry young 21st century man. With his spiky hair, leather jacket and jeans, Carpenter digs into the role, his shoulders stooped, his head jutting forwards and his jaw clenched. He seems sullen and sour at times, but this Hamlet is no slacker—especially when he opens his mouth and pierces the air with violent torrents of words. I don't know if I ever thought his Hamlet was a madman, but he sure held my attention. The supporting cast is good, with Rachel Brodeur's affecting Ophelia and Sean Bradley's brash Laertes the clear standouts. Only John Preston's Polonius disappoints; he seems more kindly than pompous, not getting desperately needed laughs during the "neither a borrower nor a lender be" speech. Director Alexander Burns has made cuts to the text, some of which are quite blatant. For example, the opening scene, in which Horatio and a group of soldiers encounter the ghost of Hamlet's father, has been eliminated. This actually isn't a bad decision, since Horatio appears a few scenes later to tell Hamlet (and the audience) what he saw. Cuts like this are understandable in such a lengthy play. But some of the editing clouds the storytelling. In one crucial scene, the first part has been eliminated—so when Hamlet strikes his dagger through a curtain and kills Polonius, all one can think is "What was Polonius doing hiding back there?" Despite all the cuts, this version of Shakespeare's longest play isn't brief—it runs nearly three hours including an intermission. The audience sits in bleacher-style seating on two facing platforms perched about five feet above the floor; the actors perform in the space between the two platforms. (There is space on the floor, at the edge of the playing area, reserved for standees—Quintessence calls it a "groundling" area, in a nod to Shakespeare's era—but this area went unused at the performance I attended.) Sometimes the actors are on their own platform, but mostly they're on the floor, forcing the audience to look down upon them as if they were in a pit. This means that for large stretches of the evening my view of the actors was blocked by a railing, a post, or the head of the guy in the front row. Ophelia's mad scene would have been much more effective if I had been able to see most of it. Moreover, many of the scene changes involve the crew wheeling that large platform into and out of the playing area while techno music plays. It's noisy and needlessly disruptive, disturbing the drama's flow. Touches like this keep the audience at a remove from the action on the stage—and from the action in Hamlet's head. Much of Quintessence's Hamlet is admirable, but in the end, this bloody tragedy seems too bloodless. Hamlet, which is being presented in repertory along with She Stoops to Conquer, runs through November 23, 2013, and is presented by Quintessence Theatre Group at Sedgwick Theater, 7137 Germantown Ave. Tickets are $25 for general admission, $15 for youth (21 and under) and $10 for groundlings (standing room), and are available by calling (215) 987-4450 or online at www.QuintessenceTheatre.org.
|
