At Nova Arts,
Hamlet's a man of action
By Everett Evans, Houston Chronicle
Nova Arts Project's take on Hamlet focuses
on "action rather than exposition," according to
a program note by dramaturg Zachary Doss.
Horror, thriller and action films, the note continues, influenced
the fledgling group's new version of the classic. As adapted
and directed by Brian Byrne, Shakespeare's text has been pruned
and re-arranged to suit those ends.
Indeed, it sometimes seems Byrne and his team are determined
to turn literature's most famous tragedy into an action spectacle
composed of equal parts Brian DePalma, Quentin Tarantino and
the Terminator flicks.
You know something's different in Denmark when you note, as
the audience arrives, a couple of troops in riot gear policing
the playing area. That lays the groundwork for sporadic bursts
of military action that erupt from time to time, accompanied
by loud sound effects.
They are never explained in terms of the content, beyond Byrne's
statement (in the show's press release) that his concept sets
Hamlet in "a police state in imminent danger of collapse
into chaos." (But that's not in the text.)
The actual performance begins with the play's most famous
passage, Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy.
Only now, the lines are spoken alternately by Hamlet and the
ghost of his murdered father, here called King Hamlet —
in this scene, heard but seen only as silhouettes behind the
wall of panels that dominates Clinton Hopper's setting. When
not used as a scrim for silhouetted figures behind it, it
becomes a screen on which are projected kinetic video sequences
apparently meant to indicate Hamlet's unsettled state of mind.
King Hamlet pops up throughout, often standing behind Hamlet
and speaking his lines along with him, as if controlling him.
OK, that makes sense.
Other innovations?
Gertrude cuts a finger off the murdered King's corpse to remove
the wedding ring she then places on a finger of her new husband
Claudius, the usurper.
Hamlet, not content with having dealt Polonius a fatal stabbing,
pulls out a syringe and starts injecting the dying meddler
with heaven-knows-what — then threatens Gertrude with
the same needle.
Poor mad Ophelia turns up strapped to a gurney.
The Players trudge on in shackles and hoods reminiscent of
the notorious photos taken at Abu Ghraib. Their play-within-a-play
(another scene staged in silhouette) depicts two of them strapping
the third to a chair and electrocuting him.
The gimmicks, effects and concepts are often interesting —
but just as often arbitrarily imposed rather than organic
to the play. Some touches seem justified (Ophelia on the gurney)
while others appear gratuitous (Hamlet's syringe-wielding
and much of the military posturing).
More importantly, with all that going on, the play's poetry
and even character development usually take a back seat to
the quest for action and startling visuals.
Nova Arts delivers a streamlined Hamlet performed with energy
and speed, but not optimal artistry. The delivery, at best,
is crisp and robust, but unexceptional in interpretive power.
There's little depth or appreciation of the play's poetry.
A few passages are obscured by the frenetic movement or sound
effects.
Still, this being Hamlet, between the material itself and
the more striking "touches," there are effective
moments.
Aaron White enacts a youthful, wiry, scruffy puppy Hamlet.
He builds believably from mild distress at the start to bewildered
fury and frustration — though perhaps relying too often
on sudden bursts of volume for effect.
Annie Donley's increasingly distraught Ophelia registers strongly
in her pathetic mad scene. Sean Judge may be aiming for cool
cunning as Claudius, but remains so dispassionate as to seem
merely businesslike.
Jenni Rebecca Stephenson starts out a shade too remote as
Gertrude, but grows more expressive in the course of the action.
Raven Peters makes a surly, bossy Polonius; Leraldo Anzaldua,
an understandably wrathful Laertes.
Byrnes being a renowned fight director, the rugged action
scenes are often impressive, especially the convincing final
fight between Hamlet and Laertes. The blows Anzaldua landed
on White at a few points on opening night looked more authentic
even than intended.
But that may be one of the selling points in Nova Arts' revisionist
"Hamlet, the Action Figure."
Hamlet
When: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Jan. 20
Where: Nova Arts Project, at the Jose Quintero Lab Theatre,
University of Houston, entrance 16 off Cullen
Tickets: $100-$15; 713-623-4033
