In Merely Players’ current production of “Hamlet,” directed by Mona Wood-Patterson, tragedy and comedy travel together. Shakespeare reminds us that life is complex.
To resonate with a modern audience, Wood-Patterson has artfully cut about one hour of text from a four-hour production. She’s also heightened the juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy.
When Hamlet’s good friend Laertes (a larger-than-life Geoff Johnson) leaves for France, he gives brotherly advice to his sister Ophelia (the multifaceted Mohriah James). It’s a comic preamble to the more famous fatherly advice given by Polonius (the strutting and preachy Brian Devine).
Wood-Patterson also makes comic hay with Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, Hamlet’s college buddies (a bejeaned and bewildered Charlie Grice and a glad-handing Johnson).
In the famous gravedigger scene, jollity intensifies as Graves doubles as an Irish workman unearthing various bones and three skulls. The scene gives Hamlet another, lighter chance to comment on the vagaries of life.
At first, the opening night audience seemed skittish about the comic bits. They pop up frequently next to unexpectedly sad or tragic moments. But Wood-Patterson’s skill interweaving Shakespearean insights eventually held forth, and the audience relaxed into the Players’ world.
“That’s the brilliance of Shakespeare,” Wood-Patterson said after the play. “He gives us everything.”
“Hamlet” could be seen simply as a revenge play, but it’s much more than that. The Prince seeks revenge for his father’s suspected murder. Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius has quickly married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude. It all smells rotten, which triggers one of the most famous lines in the play.
If you go
WHAT: Merely Players presents “Hamlet.”
WHEN: Now through Sunday.
WHERE: 789 Tech Center Drive.
TICKETS: Sold out.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit merelyplayers.org.
The Merely Players’ production takes place in contemporary time. Costumer Megan Sander’s classic modern dress sports three-piece suits, silk dresses and jeans for the college students. Tech Director Charles Ford’s clean, minimalist set substitutes Lucite chairs for gilded thrones. As scenic designer, Ford flanks the spare court with an abstract platform and an old stone wall. A curving floor depression serves as both the river where Ophelia drowns and the Gravedigger plies his trade. Paired scenes juxtapose those two memorable moments: Ophelia’s silently beautiful death-dance and the hijinks of the gravedigger. Both signal Wood-Patterson’s imagination at play.
None of this theatrical magic would succeed were it not for Conor Sheehan’s embodiment of the young and troubled Hamlet. He skillfully illuminates the hero’s shifting moods, his anger, indecision, despair and his schemes to bring down the new king. Sheehan is ably supported by a gifted pair of elders: the inestimable Matt Bodo as King Claudius and the elegant Georgi Silverman as Queen Gertrude. Jessica McCallum’s Horatio is a pitch-perfect portrayal of loyal friendship, and the actors who make up the servants and players round out the story with clarity and flair.
Dance and combat choreographer Mary-Catherine McAlvany creatively shapes the mirrored play-within-the play scenes. Her daring variation on the final, deadly conflict is underscored by Ford’s light and sound effects.
In our day, “Hamlet” dramatizes the modern concept of the divided self and surfaces tellingly in our confusing political world.
The play, writes British writer A.N. Wilson in his book “The Elizabethans”: “ … is the first modern novel, the first work of psychological analysis, the first great Romantic poem of the Inner Life … while continuing to be an electrifying drama that stretches and tests the capacities of the actor who plays the role.”
If you don’t have a ticket, get on the wait-list.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
