Hamlet @ Shakespeare Dallas
—Jill Sweeney
While I’m imperiling my status as a card-carrying Shakespeare nerd by admitting this, it’s gotta be said—I need a little something extra to get me excited about seeing Hamlet these days, most especially if I’m hauling out the lawn chairs to see it in the still-sticky Texas summer heat at Shakespeare Dallas’ open-air performance space. I’m not looking for cheap topicality (Hamlet! and everyone’s on TikTok!) or some sort of empty gimmick (Hamlet! and it’s set in a circus!). What I am looking for is a thoughtful production concept that strives to communicate all the ways Hamlet—whose titular hero is, let’s face it, the poster child for white emo manpain—remains relevant to a modern audience.
Director Christie Vela, speaking with the Dallas Morning News about the all-female production, made it very clear that casting Hamlet exclusively with women was anything but gimmicky: “There hasn’t been a time in the room where we stop to talk about how a woman would react versus how a man would; we are trying to tell this story honestly just as people who have all experienced, or are experiencing, or will surely experience, the same emotions/questions that Hamlet is grappling with in the play.”
I can appreciate the purity undergirding this approach, and lord knows it’s a treat to see so many talented women onstage together, whatever the reason. Although the casting is treated as essentially neutral, it did (intentionality be damned) color some lines. But, though a few characters, notably Polonius and Laertes, took on inevitable new facets when their lines were spoken by women, what was left was, simply, Hamlet—played straight up. One might be inclined to retort, “Isn’t that enough?”, but without a particularly sharp lens trained on the action, it doesn’t feel like this company put its own particular stamp on the piece. This, when paired with a Hamlet (played by local actress Jenny Ledell, a critical darling whose masterful grasp of Shakespeare’s language was readily apparent) who read a little more anxious than tormented, left me, against my will, a little underwhelmed.
The plot, one assumes, needs very little rehashing. Ledell’s melancholy Dane, clad in layers of black velvet that are slowly stripped down to a simple black tank and leather leggings by play’s end, is marvelously fluid when reciting some of Shakespeare’s densest and most beautiful poetry, making it both clear and accessible throughout as Hamlet ponders love, death, truth, betrayal, and everything in between. She also gives her Hamlet a playful physicality, often kicking one leg out in front of her as a way of punctuating certain lines.
That said, it was a surprisingly “light” Hamlet; while it’s true that the character has a vein of dark, thorny humor running through much of his dialogue, there was perhaps not sharp enough definition drawn between the deliberately more humorous “mad” scenes—played while fooling the credulous Polonius (Constance Gold Parry), fretful queen Gertrude (Victoria Angelina Cruz), or madcap college buddies Rosencrantz (Whitney Holotik) and Guildenstern (Elizabeth Evans)—and the soliloquies full of doubt/dread/death or the intense confabs with faithful Horatio (Francine Gonzalez).
Some standouts from the cast: I enjoyed Karen Raehpour’s scheming Claudius, striding masterfully across the stage in a piratical gold lamé frock coat and thigh-high patent leather boots (my favorite costume of the night). Raehpour nailed her big scene as Claudius tearfully acknowledges his inability to repent for the sin of murdering his brother to gain the crown, and then quickly marrying his brother’s widow. Nicole Berastequi’s steely Laertes, standing at parade rest but leaning forward like a hunter at the ready, was another favorite. The scene where Laertes, raging at the wrongs done to his family by Hamlet, schemes with Claudius to put a final end to the prince, was one of the more satisfying of the evening. Donjalea Reynolds Chrane, playing five separate roles, was a comedic standout as the First Gravedigger, cheerfully impervious to the darker aspects of his chosen profession.
The costume and set design (credited to Ryan Matthieu Smith and Natalie Rose Mabry, respectively) seemed to share in the slightly unfocused production concept. Though I enjoyed some of the more flamboyant costume pieces (Claudius’ coat and boots, Gertrude’s bedazzled cold-shoulder gown, Ophelia’s pink and floral-bedecked number—the most overtly feminine piece of the night), some choices seemed more esoteric, most notably the Middle Eastern or Asian flair to both Polonius’ and Laertes’ costumes. Interesting, but as to what it was meant to convey when contrasted with the more straightforward European costumes of the rest of the cast? Unclear. The set, dominated by stark, slightly pointed bare arches at center stage, gradually decreasing in size at the forefront (to a somewhat bare bones and crumbling castle), provided nice staging opportunities, but beyond a general sense of decay also felt ambiguous.
All in all, a straightforward interpretation of the Bard, for good or ill. While it wasn’t entirely to my taste, there’s an inherent appeal to sipping wine as the air cools and watching fireflies dance overhead—as you listen to arguably the most significant play of the Western canon, put on by a passionate group of local artists.
WHEN: Through October 15
WHERE: Samuell-Grand Park, 1500 Tenison Pkwy, Dallas, TX 75223
