BEDLAM's Hamlet: A Review

BEDLAM's production of Hamlet is not a good candidate for one's first ever exposure to the play. It is experimental, visceral, and on occasion confusing and even somewhat gaudy. There is much to sift through and process during the nearly three hour long experience, and that processing will no doubt remove enough attention from newcomers to make the play inaccessible.

If, however, you are in fact familiar with Shakespeare's masterwork, this unique take will almost certainly, despite some of its faults, excite and inspire you.

A friend and I saw the production yesterday at the Olney Theatre Center in Maryland. More specifically, we saw it in an experimental thrust space on the campus called the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab. This facility holds about 150, I would guess, and when were were there it was clean, but only partially painted. Whether this is how the venue always looks, or if it has been painted as such for Hamlet, I don't know. I do know that this presentation needs to take place in small, intimate surroundings with little frills, so the venue matched it well. The potency of this type of performance would certainly be lost in a conventional, more distant proscenium venue.

Why? It is Hamlet with just four actors. (Though, to be fair, at times the show cheats a bit on this concept, with various stage hands shouting certain lines off stage as needed. At least during this performance.) The four BEDLAM actors are Ted Lewis, Tom O'Keefe, Andrus Nichols and Eric Tucker. Tucker played the title role, and is also the director. As for the other three, as you can imagine for a show like this, each of them played several other characters. And some characters were not always played by the same people. Characters would hope from one actor to the other as needed, (and sometimes when NOT needed, but simply for comical or dramatic effect.) At certain points, these transitions happen multiple times within a single scene, with nothing more to indicate it than the quick donning of a hat or an obvious change in gait or accent. It is somewhat dizzying when both of an actor's characters in a scene talk to one another.

I told you it was not the play to see if you don't know Hamlet.

Not that this is by any means a weakness of the production. The mere blocking of the transitions alone without the spoken lines would be a performance to watch in and of itself. Especially in the final scene, when actors jump, run, toss hats and other props to one another on they cross, give one character's speech only to die, spin around and become their other character reacting to same. It looked like a cross between ballet and the NFL. A virtual master-clinic in choreography. (It actually reminds me a bit of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged  in that regard.)

Optimal use of whatever venue BEDLAM finds itself in is an integral part of this experiment as well. The human elements of the story, still vividly alive in Shakespeare's words take on an even more visceral quality as the four actors run in and out of the actual exits of the entire building, roll up a garage door to reveal not just Fortinbras, but the theater's actual parking lot, and deliver lines from the audience or the lighting booth among other places. The result is an impression that this is indeed a traveling company that just happened to find the building, and is putting on the play for the first time within the confines. This would be a different show depending on where one would see it, and that isn't always the case with plays.

Yet it is not an "in your face" production. Unlike the last time I saw a Hamlet I wasn't put off by the intimacy because it wasn't shoved down my throat. I felt invited, not forced, to become absorbed into the action. (Though just in case, I opted not to sit on the stage in the final scenes, when a new row of chairs was brought in by the actors. My companion opted to take the new seat, however. Other than Hamlet sitting next to her for the graveyard scene, nothing particular happened "to" her.)

All of the expert blocking in the world, however, would be fruitless without the language, which is why people consume Shakespeare. Though at times I found some of the speeches delivered too fast to be understood, (especially near the end), I consider BEDLAM's presentation of the text vivid and realistic. Clearly the actors knew what they were saying, and yet felt no compulsion to openly worship the verse. (A tendency I find that derails many modern productions of the Bard's work.) The words are mostly alive when they come from each of these actors. When that happens, you can perform Shakespeare at a landfill, and it will work. (For all I know, this has been done.)

At times, the gimmick overshadows the performances, though. An empty frame hangs from the ceiling from the beginning of the show. I was 99% sure at some point the reference to "counterfeit presentments" would connect to this prop, and indeed it does. But before that, Polonius is standing behind it, and when killed, the Christmas lights around the frame begin blinking, and continue to do so as the "dead" Polonius lies there. Instead of full exits, at times actors would merely sit on the laps of other actors, to conceal them from the audience until it was time for them to return. A few extraneous modern conventions, such as Hamlet observing, "awkward!", and shouting at Polonius, "Sing it with me!" These moments, as well as an at times unabashed if indirect acknowledgment that they are in fact a bunch of actors performing a show, ("In 45 minutes we will all be dead," says on actor just as the second intermission ends) took me out of the moment a few times.

There were also a few scene that required quite a bit of set assembly, as it were. As stage hands walked freely in and out of the action setting up chairs or curtains, I lost much of what was being said.

Then there are the transitions I mentioned. Usually they worked, especially when one character had a specific hat or prop they always carried. (Polonius always wore glasses, for example.) Yet I don't think there were enough of these small indications of different characters. This is perhaps by design, so as to force the audience to pay attention to the words more precisely. If so, I commend the notion. But when Claudius and Gertude are speaking, and Claudius suddenly changes his accent, and then the actress playing the Queen just shrugs and becomes the other gravedigger, it can take a moment to adjust to what has just happened.

I was also somewhat disappointed at the use of what seemed to be the gay stereotype in most of Hamlet's "mad" scenes. I don't at all believe the production or those involved in it are homophobic, and I could have accepted the use of the fay, high pitched voice for a few of the moments. But it seems to have been the go to set of affectations anytime Hamlet needed to be crazy, and it flirted with offensive near the end.

Still, any fan of minimalist production, experimental concepts, story/language-centric theatre and certainly of Hamlet should attend a production of BEDLAM's version of the play.(In repertory with Shaw's St. Joan, which gets the same four-actor treatment, with the same cast.) With them, it is more than simple "words, words, words" on a page.

Rewarding

Each person in a play is going to have their own idea about when it is going well and when it is not, based on their particular progress as relates to the whole. For myself, I'd have to say that tonight's rehearsal f Act Two was a highly productive rehearsal. (Notwithstanding the fact that once again, one of the least present actors in all of the rehearsals came to the theatre, but opted to go home because they didn't have their glasses. Not go home and retrieve them and come back, mind you. Simply go home, and screw rehearsal.)

The Players began to learn their Dumb Show. (Though we will be missing on player for about a week, and another over the weekend.) So that was very productive. The two leads, though calling for lines more often than last night still seem to have a pretty good grasp on their lines and speeches. I myself, with one exception, remembered all of my lines, and feel that I am starting at last to bring an energy to Hamlet that I confess was lacking in previous rehearsals.

And that is the point, after all. If Hamlet, and for that matter any of the main characters from the source material are weak, it reflects badly on the whole show. The two leads have less to reflect on or react to if we who are playing the smaller roles give them less than our best. Those who know me and/or read this blog know that I have never allowed the background of a play to mean less than the foreground. The cliche of "no small parts" truly does have a basis in a very important truth.

There is still much work for me and everyone to do, but if I may be so bold I have to say I am taking to Hamlet quite well. I knew I would be adequate from the beginning, since I insist on working hard to do my best at any role, but I confess to feeling early on that I may not be able to give Hamlet as much personality as he and the play deserved. Not because of the smallness of the role, but because of it's fame. People are still going to have an idea of what to expect from Hamlet, even if it is in this play. (All of his lines are genuine Shakespeare.) Plus it was an abbreviated amount of time. I can't say I am exactly where I would want to be in a full scale production of "Hamlet", but I am starting to establish something that feels real to me while also being fair to the character. Perhaps my having read the play so often has been of greater benefit than I would have previously surmised.

I have to say that despite the excellent work of the two leads, I have not been watching much of what they do. I have read the script all the way through, so I know what happens and get the gist of what they are saying, but I am finding that by exposing myself as little as possible to what those actors are doing I am contributing to the sense of chasm between their two characters and my own. Or rather the chasm between the planes on which they exist, in this absurdest limbo of setting Stoppard has conjured up. 

Tomorrow we run Act Three, wherein I have no official lines. Though now, as I mentioned a few posts ago, I will shout "pirates" while on stage. We will be running the pirate attack slapstick at full speed for the first time, so this should be interesting. Tomorrow will also be the final time we rehearse only a section of the play. All rehearsals after that will be of the entire play. I look forward to that of course.

Enter Hamlet

First blocking rehearsal tonight. Given that a few actors could not make it tonight, we skipped a large scene in the middle of Act One, but otherwise blocked all of the first act. (It should be pointed out that on paper this script has three acts and not two.)

This director has admitted that she is not fond of giving blocking directions. She prefers to keep things general, and relies a lot on what feel natural for the actor. She has some instructions for us, and will have more as time goes on, but it will in most cases probably be a play of minimal blocking.

Especially for me in Act One. Hamlet enters and grabs Ophelia by the hand, and lets forth a sigh that is "piteous" and such. In fact the stage directions for that moment are almost word for word from Ophelia's speech in Shakespeare wherein she describes to her father what had just happened between the two of them in her sewing room. In other words a silent scene which doesn't appear in the source material. That will require some work in order to give anyone the impression that anything is happening. But this was an early rehearsal.

My next moment, also silent, is when I simply cross the stage reading a book, and then exit. This is also referenced in Shakespeare. It would be the moment when right before Hamlet reaches the lobby, where he is discovered by Polonious, the King and the Queen, pretending to be crazy all along.

Finally I enter again in what would be near the end of the interrogation Polnious gives to Hamlet. ("...if like a crab, you could go backward.") There will eventually be a high platform and ramp down which I will walk for this scene. The director isn't sure exactly what it will look like, but that is the overall plan. Right now the entrance to stage left is blocked, so we just had to fake it.

After a brief break, we ran all of those scenes again.

"Guildenstern" was there today. He and I are friends and have been in several plays together over the years. He only recently came to the realization that this will be a shortened rehearsal process, and indeed it will be. I have to say I think I would have had some fun in one of the two lead roles, but in this case I am somewhat thankful for the smaller role. I won't have as much to work on in these four weeks. That, and the small role being Hamlet doesn't hurt either.

My next rehearsal is not until Sunday. It has been a while since I had that many days between rehearsals. I am therefore going to see if I can get off book for my few lines by then. I may not get all the way off, but I should make a pretty good dent in it if I keep at it.

Much of that time should also be spent trying to get into the character of Hamlet. As I mentioned before I may not have the time, on stage or off to explore the character as much as I would like to. However, it is Hamlet, and I think some interesting exploration can still take place.