Theater Review: Hamlet

by Alex Hargis of John Garcia's The Column

The production had a myriad of elements that hindered its potential.

The Shakespearean masterpiece Hamlet over the course of its 400-year history has soared to iconic heights within the English-speaking world and has become to many theater companies a luscious crown jewel signifying credibility and accomplishment. Conquering such a show could place a company as a legitimate heir within the long lineage of prominent playhouses who have come before. The pedigree alone would make the surest artistic directors timid: The Lord Chamberlain's Men, The Globe Theater, The Old Vic Theatre, and The National Theatre company. Hamlet has heard its beautiful words reverberated throughout the ornate halls of palaces and seen the language penetrate the souls of kings, queens and royal courts for hundreds of years.

In SATER's production of Hamlet at Dallas Hub Theater in the destitute district of the once proclaimed Deep Ellum, there were no palaces. There were no opulent backdrops, conservatory trained players, or kings in attendance. All there was in that unpretentious warehouse converted performance space was a handful of local actors fighting to claim their theatrical birthright and a sparse collection of nine-to-five working suburban lords watching the struggle.

If mounting a classic portrayal of Hamlet wasn't enough of a colossal undertaking, try doing it while simultaneously performing Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead—with the same cast. This incredible theatrical challenge was the twisted brainchild of co-directors Tim Shane & Jason Fitzmaurice.

Mr. Shane & Mr. Fitzmaurice edited the plays so they could run in sync, utilizing a 'house and garden' format. The result from this format is an exhausting ironman style theatre, where an actor's exit from one stage immediately turns into an entrance onto the adjacent stage. The relatively youthful cast from Saturday's performance had the reserves to withstand the physical torment, but the mental marathon that comes with Shakespeare and the shear weight of a venture this massive proved to be too much for the cast to bear.

The production had a myriad of elements that hindered its potential. The least noteworthy problem, but equally annoying of them all, was the continuous distractions. Before the play began, I couldn't help noticing the dull, audible churning of a projector fan six feet above me and the water dripping onto my face and shoulders from the air vent overhead, flopping on me every four minutes like a steady IV. Those distractions were trivial, but others were not, such as the motorcycle muffler roars from the alley during Hamlet's compelling "To be, or not to be" speech, the faint ruckus of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern next door during most of the play, and the infamous Nextel page bleeps heard every time the stage manager made a call to backstage.

Another element that persistently plagued the show was the language. The actors coherently grasped what they were saying and often delivered the subtext without loosing much in the translation, but the focus taken up by this left them depraved in terms of diction and establishing relationships. Jeff Swearingen, playing the title role, would at times sound like a blur of consonants and vowels during his energetic rants. When he softly delivered his speeches, the effect was alluring but could have been absolutely magnetic if he had cut the still air with crystal diction.

Relationships also suffered severely at the hand of the language's difficulty. Most of the actors were so consumed with their own line delivery, they were not free to move and interact with one another. As a result, some plot elements went flat. Although Christopher Dontrell Piper & David Jeremiah playing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern respectively brought a refreshing energy to the stage, no one could have guessed by their interactions they were old chums of Hamlet. The relationships came off as lukewarm at best.

The same could be said of Hamlet's relationships with Ophelia and Horatio. There was the obligatory manly handshake and hug to communicate comradery between Hamlet and Horatio, but was that enough to make us believe that Horatio would willingly drink from the same poisoned cup to join his dead friend at the end of the play? There was not one tender moment between Hamlet and Ophelia, not one embrace or kiss to establish the secret, passionate love they shared before the play's timeline began. This was a problem. That obsessive love was the catalyst needed to start Ophelia's downward spiral once Hamlet severed his attention from her. If there was no passion to take away, then she couldn't go insane and couldn't be led to commit suicide later on. The language was key and fairly delivered, but the lack of relationships kept the play to nothing more than an elaborate stage reading.

Shakespeare is like rhythmic silk to my ears, but even I can only withstand sitting for so long concentrating on it. At three hours and fifteen minutes everyone was spent. Audience members next to me were performing contortionist acts in their seats trying to find new positions that brought blood back into their rumps, and the actors were noticeably losing their concentration, hitting the wall of mental kaput during the fourth act. Yes, Hamlet is a long play, but it never needs to be this long. Pacing and sync issues were the culprits to the play's run over.

Too many robust pauses and contemplative moments were taken in order to falsely create dramatic tension and solemnity at the expense of rhythm and kinetic energy, which was so desperately needed throughout. The sync issues were the most troubling, however, and probably the biggest detriment to performing in the 'house and garden' format.

If any one show was running behind or ahead, entrance cues were missed. Four scene changes in Hamlet ended with one actor alone on the stage for two to four minutes painfully waiting for the other actor to enter and resume the action. And because it's Shakespeare, none of the actors could fill the dead space with impromptu iambic pentameter. Poor Rebekah Grayson who played Ophelia was left on stage for what felt like six minutes quietly weeping and muttering to herself. One audience member said in a non-conservative whisper, "Is this intermission?" No it wasn't, but I'm sure Ms. Grayson wouldn't have mind if it had.

Despite the pacing issues, the language barrier, the hodge-podge mixture of accents varying from Cockney to Jersey to a Gomer Pyle going through puberty, there were some very nice moments and delightful surprises. Adam Dietrich, as The Player, was a treat to watch. His eyes and facial expressions could tell a complete story and were always engaged in the scene with another actor. What was most appreciated in his Hecuba scene was his full commitment to a choice. Mr. Dietrich chose to make The Player a rogue, a hustling performer using his talent for selfish pleasures and giving little reverence to the craft. I didn't personally favor the choice, but it worked. It worked because Mr. Dietrich committed to it, turning the performance into a charming highlight of the evening.

The greatest surprise of the evening, however, went to Jeff Swearingen as Hamlet. Mr. Swearingen fell into acting just a few years ago and started out in the DFW theatre scene like a ball of Flubber. All you had to do was throw him in a scene and he would spasmodically slam around the room with his slapstick humor, out-of-this-world characterizations, and Jim Carrey-esque madness, sometimes causing damage to himself and inanimate objects. His performance as Hamlet was not one you could compare to Laurence Olivier's. But what Swearingen did accomplish with this role was the complete development from an off-the-wall character actor into a more focused & disciplined performer, who, at times, played this iconic part splendidly.

It must be stated that SATER's venture to produce Hamlet and Rosencrantz &Guildenstern Are Dead simultaneous was incredibly ambitious, and on some level, that must be respected. Everyone at sometime or another has pulled for the little guy, the underdog to succeed against unimaginable odds. It was inspiring to see this young theater company tackling a project of this scale.

If some adjustments had been made, maybe stripping down the production of useless accoutrements like set pieces, costumes and accents, or performing the shows in repertory, more attention could have been given to the text and the relationships. This could have made the show excel. For this theater company at this time in their existence, it would be best to work with the beer budget and put on one hell of a keg party instead of vainly struggling to pull off the ball.

Both productions run through February 7 and tickets can be purchased online or by calling 1-877-238-5596.

It should be noted that although both productions ran simultaneously, only Hamlet was viewed and critiqued.