Category Archives: review

Something Rotten in the State of Denmark

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As a birthday present, my favorite partner in crime treated me to Hamlet at the Gamm theatre in Pawtucket, RI.

I was excited to see the show because what’s a bardy birthday with some bard?  Also, I’m always on the lookout for companies who produce Shakespeare (preferably semi-regularly, which Gamm does).  Much of my audience Shakes-perience comes from years and years of being a patron of Shakespeare & Company, so it’s really good to broaden my portfolio and have a look at other companies, other styles, and other talents.

I try not to go into Shakespeare with any hopes whatsoever.  I really do try and enter with a clean mind, ready to enjoy the show and without some highfalutin’ notion of should and shouldn’t.  Obviously there’s an awareness of the textual and historical difficulties innate in any production, but I try not to let that hijack my experience of the performance.

Unfortunately, Gamm’s production was somewhat disappointing.

The first act was bland.  They tackled the problems innate in Hamlet with strength, but not any sense of creativity.  The staging was predictable, the performances on the whole nothing spectacular.  There were a few exceptions: Tony Estrella, Gamm’s current Artistic

Hamlet (center) greets Roz and Guil (Left and Right respectively)

Director and the title role of the show, speaks the text like he was born to it.  He was a little old for Hamlet, but that didn’t bother me overmuch once the play got rolling.  Steve Kidd’s Claudius may seem boring in the first act, but just give him some time to warm up.  Once he hits his soliloquy in the second act, he’ll prove that he’s no dumb king; he’s just trying to hold it together so hard that his movements are as constrained as a geisha’s.  Ben Gracia and Joe Short as Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are a breathe of fresh air, and I’ve never seen the “play this pipe” speech done with more clarity.  Tom Gleadow as the gravedigger should be knighted for bringing some joy to the stage, though his ghost leaves something to be desired (not due to his own performance, but rather due to a lack of directorial imagination – there was nothing done to distinguish the ghost as otherworldly or inhuman and thereby the scenes fell flat for me).

The entire player troop was also delightful – just hammy enough without completely stealing the show.

And the fight direction was absolutely stellar.  All of the violence onstage was well paced, well choreographed, and well rehearsed.  Mister Normand Beauregard, the Gamm’s resident fight director, has my personal stamp of approval.

With the good comes the bad, and unfortunately there was a great deal of bad.  Jeanine Kane’s Gertrude was cardboard, Marc Dante Mancini’s Horatio almost incomprehensible, and Gillian Williams packs too much of a punch to play Ophelia.  Due to the choice in aging Hamlet, Ophelia was also aged and, while Williams is certain to please in roles more suited to her strength, she didn’t make a believable waif.

Here’s the thing about Ophelia: Ophelia is a wisp of a girl stuck in a man’s world.  She’s not a woman, she’s not someone who knows how to function on her own, and every man in her life has used and abused her.  Her father, her brother, Hamlet himself… all of these men treat Ophelia like a pawn in their greater game.  Ophelia runs mad because these men are all taken away from her.  Without them, she simply cannot function in the high-pressure environment of the court.  If you have an Ophelia who is able to stand on her own, there’s no reason why she would run mad when her father dies and Hamlet is sent away.  She’d just pick herself up by the bootstraps and move on (and that, my friends, is the difference between Ophelia and Rosalind).  So Williams, while talented, really shouldn’t be playing this role.  And casting her robbed the play of credence.

Hamlet with Polonius

There’s been a trend lately of modernizing Hamlet, but the problem with doing that is such: there’s only so modern Hamlet can be.  Hamlet requires a world with aristocracy, a world where swords are still used (you cannot do anything else with that duel, it HAS to be a swordfight), and a world where women are afforded a societal position lower than men.  Most directors solve this by staging Hamlet in a World War II era, about the most modern Hamlet will go.  As such, this production’s choice to do just that wasn’t at all bold or new.  In fact, it’s becoming something quite hackneyed.

The production made one other bold choice which, again, wasn’t new or different… simply upsetting.

So Hamlet is a story about the foibles of leadership and how horrible power can be.  There is, however, hope in this: Horatio, the one who watches, the one who is there through everything, is able to carry on the story.  He tells the tale of the Danish court to Fortinbras after the Norwegians claim the Danish throne.  There is some assurance that these awful events, once come to pass, will never happen in the same way again.

That is, unless you disregard the textual clues, completely dump upon the greater meaning of Hamlet, and use the last moment onstage to shoot Horatio.

Okay, directors, listen up.  Rule number one about Hamlet: you don’t shoot Horatio.  Period.  Doing so completely alters the meaning of Shakespeare’s text, completely jars the audience into a hopeless slump, and otherwise privileges your “GREAT CONCEPT” over the bard’s work.  Yes, I understand that you’re trying to do something “new and innovative” with a text that is done to death in the popular culture, but shooting Horatio is not new nor is it innovative.  Oskar Eustis did it in Shakespeare in the Park’s 2008 Hamlet and I didn’t like it then either.  “Bid the soldiers shoot” is Fortinbras’ instruction to begin the gun salute funeral festivities, not license to impose your ending on a literary classic.

I could drone on about why this choice is wrong, but unless you’re looking for a dramaturge for your modern-dress production of Hamlet you’re probably not interested in reading it.  If you ARE looking for a dramaturge for your modern-dress production of Hamlet, shoot me an e-mail and I’m your girl.  If you’re planning a modern-dress production of Hamlet, for god’s sake find yourself a dramaturge so that you don’t make this mistake (…looking at the production credits, they did have a dramaturge for this production… I can’t imagine what she was thinking to allow this to happen.  Fie and shame upon her!).

What did Horatio ever do to you?

Hamlet’s run has been extended through December 18th.  For more information, head on over to their website.

Follow the Yellow-Brick Road

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Have you ever been working on something for so long and so hard that eventually the result simply feels like a dream?  Dreamt about something enough and, when it becomes a reality, you feel as though you’ve fallen asleep in class rather than brought the castle down from its cloud?

To make any claim other than I feel like I’ve been wandering the land of Oz for the past month and a half would be an outright lie.  I’m not in Kansas anymore and, while Jerry may not be Toto, he is rather fuzzy.

This week, two things happened which worked to either cement the Oz fantasy or prove to

of course, I'd need some stylish ruby slippers... though they aren't quite practical for lugging library books

me that yes, this is really happening, and I am exactly where I’ve pictured myself for so very long.

Thing number one: I wrote (or rather co-wrote) and submitted a course application to the experimental college at Tufts.  This included drafting my own syllabus.  I selected books.  I assigned readings.  I thought about pacing and assignments and grading!  I even went through and tried to pick my favorite edition of Shakespeare (it’s like picking a favorite child for me… I kind of collect Complete Works).  And at the end of it, there it was, my name at the top of the syllabus listed as “instructor”.

Well that’s a rush.

At this point in my life, syllabi have become more than pieces of paper; they are a way of life.  My first syllabus was gifted to me my Senior year of high school by my humanities instructor (a certain Susan Sabatino at the Professional Performing Arts School in New York City…. Yea, I went to the fame school.  Yea, it was kind of exactly like the movie.  Yea, I have some stories to tell…).  This is perhaps made more poignant by the fact that my partner in crime for this endeavor is an individual whom I roamed those hallowed halls with.  But I digress.

When Ms. Sab passed the syllabus out that first day of class, she said “this bit of paper is worth its weight in gold.  No, not gold, platinum.”

And thus my relationship with the syllabus began.  I don’t think one can possibly understand the impact that those little bits of paper can have on one’s life.  At first they seem odd; assignments?  Due dates?  A plan for the ENTIRE SEMESTER?  What is this?  Eventually, though, one begins to love the syllabus.  It dictates one’s schedule for the week, month, year.  It lovingly reminds one of course expectations in one’s hour of need.  It benevolently smiles down at one from on high with vital information about office hours, contact information, and due dates.  It holds the answers to the questions that govern one’s existence like “do I ever catch a break?” and “what week can I plan to sleep in a little bit?”

As one proceeds into one’s higher education, one lives by the syllabus and dies by the syllabus.  A lifeline.  A sword.  A shield.  Everything one needed to know about class but was too afraid to ask.  The gatekeeper.  The keymaster.

Those stone tablets sent from on high brought down by a holy messenger anointed by the Glorious one.

But oh look how those tables have turned.

In writing a syllabus, we were inscribing the tablets.  We were creating destiny.  We were being deified.

behold the glory

As I printed the applications (including these diagrams of the future), I couldn’t help but be elated.  This was, perhaps, real.  I had, perhaps, arrived.

…or maybe I was just with the Scarecrow on the Yellow Brick Road.

So my printer needs a vacation in the Bahamas for its service this past week (five copies of an application plus all sundry materials… each application ran about 20 pages… my poor baby).  But… it’s done.  And I am so very excited.

Thing number two:  I received my first ever review copy of a scholarly book of which I shall be writing a review sometime in the next few months which will (gods willing) be published!  Words cannot express my jubilation.  No, seriously, every time I try I wind up devolving into some high-pitched girly squealing of exhilaration and jumping around a little bit.

I don’t want to say too much about the book, or about the journal (you know, in case things don’t work out or something), but I will say this: Shakespeare (that’s kind of a duh for me).  The book (or books, rather, it will be a double review) are about Shakespeare.  They’re both new, interesting, and engaging scholarship.  One is probably more in line with my specific research interests than the other, but I am open, willing, and ready, to love both of them.  There is space in my heart (and on my bookshelves) for anything that doesn’t grind my man Will into the dust (Oxfordians, you have no power here, be gone before someone drops a house on you).

Uncanny Theatre

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It’s midnight on a Friday.  You’re just stumbling home from an evening of pubbing or (if you’re me) away from your computer after a long day of research.  You realize that you have an e-mail in your inbox, it’s a rendezvous time for the next day.  You sigh, remembering suddenly that you had booked something and just couldn’t recall what…  the e-mail includes a link to a google map and tells you to meet there at two the following day.

Flash forward to Saturday afternoon.  You’ve managed to make the rendezvous with your travel companions.  A man in a long cape and a white beard meets you there to tell you a

the man with the beard

story; it’s a story about you, a story about something you’ve done in the past, a story about time traveling.

He weaves his tale and you realize that this story is about to pick up right now.  There’s a test, he says, being administered as we speak.  It’s on the corner of Dartmouth and Newbury….

And off you go.  You rush to make it to the test, you meet a man in a suit waiting there for you, of course someone passing by you “accidentally” dropped an answer key so you are certain to pass this thing…

…and your time-venture has begun.  “Choose your own Time-Venture” is just the most recent event put on by The Banditos Misteriosos.  This quixotic organization bills itself as “Boston’s Mysterious Playmate”.  Three or four times a year, the Banditos organize free, fun events which use Boston as a playground.  They don’t advertise (other than by word of mouth) and they aim to put forward experiences which I would term “geektastically fun”.  Past events have included a celebration of Boston day which revolved around a “historically accurate” water gun fight between the Back Bay Swamp Creatures and the Revere Horsemen, a pillow fight flash mob, and a giant Boston-themed scavenger hunt.

“Time-Venture” was particularly interesting to me due to its performative implications.  How can we classify this event?  There were definitely actors playing roles (just about every street corner had someone playing something whether it was a time machine mechanic, an agent with the time-traveling organization, or a crime boss from whom you needed to receive a pivotal piece of the time machine).  The actors were costumed and followed a

time-machine mechanic fulfilling his destiny to be a can-can dancer... really, folks, you can't make this stuff up.

“structure” rather than a specific “script” and your encounters with them were arranged to form a cohesive story.  However, what cannot be ignored is the element of choice.  This was, essentially, a live-action choose-your-own-adventure novel.  Each waypoint had at least two options to choose from and tasks which had to be fulfilled in order to enact those options.  At one waypoint, we were required to take pictures of ourselves fulfilling our destinies in order to convince our liaison that we believed in fate.  At another, we had to solve a letter-replacement cipher in order to decode a message.  At a third, we had to use the time-traveling tools which we had acquired to bend the encounter to an outcome which favored us.

Scholar Glynne Wickham recognizes five basic elements which, at the most fundamental level, create a theatrical event.  These are: 1) the existence of a theatre (a stage and auditorium), 2) the imitation of actions in sequence (story-line), 3) the means of identifying person and place (costumes and setting), 4) actors, 5) audience.  If we go by these parameters, then “Time-Venture” could easily be termed a theatrical event.  The only quality which would be up for true debate here is the existence of a theatre.  The Banditos’ mission statement (“Boston is a playground. Banditos Misteriosos is the city’s mysterious playmate. We are an organization dedicated to bringing Boston alive with a slew of activities that are free, open to everybody and most importantly, just a little bit out of the ordinary..”) makes extraordinarily clear that their intended venue of performance is the city itself.  Can we term a city a theatre?  “May we cram within this wooden ‘O’ the very casks that did afright the air at Agincourt?”.

Well, okay, let’s get more specific here.  Yes, the entire event unfolded over the course of a section of Boston.  However.  Each specific encounter was scripted for a specific street

a mediaeval pageant wagon

corner (or park, or sidewalk).  So, in a way, we could equate “Time-venture” with mediaeval pageant wagons.  For those who aren’t up on their theatre history, in medieval England during important religious feasts and festivals, the working-class would stage cycles of plays on what were called “pageant wagons”.  Each wagon was assigned a portion of the story to tell, and the wagons were paraded throughout the town, stopping at pre-arranged stopping points and commencing their bit of the story.  If you stood in one place long enough, you saw an entire play.

For “Time-venture”, rather than the audience standing in place and the play coming to us, we walked to the play.  Perhaps there were no raised scaffolds involved, but there were certainly performance spaces.  Each performer held his own “area” and, as in normal conversation, we as a group remained at arm’s length to fulfill our interaction.

Perhaps an argument could be made about the interactive nature of the text.  A play, after all, is something written by a playwright to show a certain story.  In the case of “Time-venture”, the story was in our hands.  Our group wound up first attempting to fix the broken time machine, but then becoming double agents to subvert the evil organization which was trying to go back in time and re-cast Star Wars.  We gathered the elements of the time machine from old friends, drug lords, and secret rendezvous, and used them to destroy the time machine and save the past.  Other groups, I am told, had very different experiences based upon their choices.  But does that make either of these stories less cohesive?  There remained a beginning, middle, and end.  There remained obstacles to overcome.  There remained choices.

Simply because we were placed in the middle of the action rather than passive observers of said action did not make the action any less dramatic.  We were the volunteers from an audience during an improv show.  We were the heroes of our own story.  Like it or not, we had become actors.

I highly recommend checking out the Banditos and attending any event they run.  They were a pleasure to interact with, made us feel welcome in this ridiculous adventure, and completely enfolded us in an uncanny world of strange goings-on.  What an afternoon of entertainment!

>MacBeth hath Murdered Sleep

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It was a dark and stormy night. 
We walked the gray streets of Chelsea under a steady drizzle of rain as we gazed upon the generic building fronts hoping to arrive at our destined address sooner rather than later.  It was just cold enough for the rain to be unwelcomely chilly, like little specks of recently-melted ice oozing upon us.
We arrived at a warehouse attended by two men clad all in black.  “Are you looking for the McKittrick hotel?”
Upstairs, a gay lounge decorated with an eye towards thirties glamour is hopping.  A four-piece jazz band plays while a singer lovingly croons period music, a bartender dressed in spats serves up cocktails, and a woman in a blue sequined gown slinks around from table to table asking if you are ready to join the party yet.
By now, anyone even remotely connected to the theatre has likely at least heard about the Punchdrunk theatre company’s immersive theatre experience “Sleep No More”.  The New York revival (currently playing at the McKittrick Hotel on W. 27th street) is a re-make of the phenomenon which hit Boston in October of 2009 (ran Oct. 8, 2009 – Feb. 7, 2010 at The Old Lincoln School in Brookline).  To support the sheer amount of space required for the endeavor, Punchdrunk has taken over three conjoined Chelsea warehouses.  According to the New York Times, 200 unpaid volunteers spent approximately four months meticulously putting the over-100 rooms in the hotel together.  And believe you me it shows.
As you enter the hotel, you are given a white Venetian mask which you are asked to keep on during the duration of the production (my comrades with glasses reported that this made things a little difficult for them).  You are asked not to speak, and (as usual) to silence your cell phones.
You are then ushered into a large freight elevator where a porter randomly assigns chunks of the party to begin their journey at different floors.  We held hands to keep from getting separated (by the by, if you do go, go with a very small group or decide that you will get separated and agree to meet at the bar afterwards – it’s difficult to keep track of people in the dark when everyone’s wearing the same white mask and nobody is allowed to speak). 
You enter a veritable labyrinth of rooms (environments really) where you are permitted to touch, move, examine and explore.  We found everything from a foggy London street, to a taxidermist’s shop, an apothecary with dried herbs hanging from every available surface, a hedge maze, a ballroom, a Victorian hospital, a Victorian asylum, Macduff’s children’s rooms, to a large room with a bathtub filled with bloody water (I take this to be the Macbeths’ room).  In every room there is something to discover (some of my favorite discoveries were hand-written letters strewn about the place including the famous letter which MacB writes his Lady Wife – “They met me on the eve of ascension…”). 
As though the living museum aspect of this weren’t enough to sate the rampant voyeur, there is a human aspect as well.  Actors dash about around you (easy to spot – they’re the ones without the masks) and you can choose to follow them and watch them meet up with other actors to portray wordless scenes in various environments of the hotel.  Amongst some of the scenes we saw were the famous Macbeth banquet, a couple dancing in the ballroom, the Witches’ first encounter with Macbeth (complete with shot roulette), and the murder of Duncan.
I really can’t describe to you how wonderfully creepy the entire experience was.  Imagine floating about darkened rooms, not knowing where you will end up when you turn a corner, constantly meeting with white-masked individuals who are somehow comforting rather than terrifying, and occasionally being grabbed by actors who seem to appear from nowhere.  Perhaps the highlight of our time in the hotel came when we were attempting to find our way out.  We had reached the stairway and were trying to follow an actor one way (at the back of the white-masked cloud) when a woman’s scream echoed through the hall.  We all looked at each other, about-faced, and (like good heroes) ran towards it to find Macbeth standing over the body of a very pregnant Lady Macduff.  Somehow, the knowledge that we had just missed the murder (even if there was nothing we could have done about it) sank sickly into my gut.  Had there even been anyone there to observe her last moments?  Had she expected to see him coming round the hall?  Had she greeted him or did he surprise her?  And did she try to fight him off or gracefully accept her fate?
Now this is theatre.
The experience jostled me.  As we explored the different rooms, there was no doubt that I was moved; to tears, terror, laughter, excitement, suspense, pity and everything in between.  Being able to touch and be touched by what was going on brought the story home to me in a way that I’ve never experienced before.  Of course, there isn’t really a cohesive story.  There is no set path for a visitor to explore, there is no pre-determined way to experience the hotel.  Proprietors estimate that each guest only sees 1/16th of the total experience.  And I won’t say that at times I wasn’t left wondering “so what does this have to do with Macbeth?”  But even in those times, I was too enraptured with what was going on around me to mind too horribly much.
Some reviewers find that Shakespeare haunts the attraction rather than is the attraction.  I don’t entirely disagree with them, but I find it difficult to lend their argument full credence.  Certainly liberties were taken with “Sleep No More”, and there are things which still don’t make sense to me.  That, however, is what I think holds the greatest appeal.  The entire thing is a puzzle which can be solved one of ten billion ways and it is up to each individual to determine her own experience and what that experience means.
When I left the hotel I was exhausted.  I felt like my mind was going to leak out my ear.  I had a difficult time forming coherent sentences, and we drove home through the now-torrential thunderstorm in almost complete silence.  As I collapsed into my bed that evening, all I could think was “Macbeth hath murdered sleep.”
…for that… I slept like a baby.  Despite having bizarre blood-soaked dreams with figures in white Venetian masks and random time-traveling with an eye towards steam-punk style globetrotting antics. 
Go.  Seriously.  Find some way to get there.  This is a veritable revolution in the way audiences experience Shakespeare and I can only hope that this cutting edge cuts deeply into the fabric of American Theatre.  I don’t think that saying “I will cheat on the bard” works here because technically I didn’t really…. it’s more like having a tryst with his similar-yet-different twin brother.