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Note: This post has been updated to reflect changes in performance dates.

With Prince Harry’s “Spare” topping bestseller lists and “The Crown” getting millions of views worldwide, perhaps it’s no surprise that William Shakespeare’s tale of a “courtly world turned upside down” still draws audiences.

Yet there’s something more than an obsession with royalty that fuels the popularity of “Hamlet.”

Sure, the play deals with juicy stuff: A king is dead, possibly murdered by his own brother, who has not only usurped the throne but also married the widowed queen. But what literary and theatrical experts say catapults “Hamlet” beyond a simple revenge tragedy into a complex classic is its fascinating main character.

David Baker

“As cliched as it might be, it’s timeless,” said Vivienne Benesch, producing artistic director of PlayMakers Repertory Company, whose production of “Hamlet” opens this week. “It grapples with problems all of us grapple with, no matter our age, ethnicity or sex. It’s literally the 1,000 possibilities of who we are.”

The Bard of Avon excelled at giving theatergoers the gory deaths and high drama they wanted, “the Marvel cinematic stuff of the day,” said Michael Gadaleto. An English and comparative literature teaching assistant professor, he calls “Hamlet” his favorite and a “gateway drug for Shakespeare.”

But at the same time, the playwright subtly subverts his audience’s expectations. “Shakespeare does this throughout his career. It’s part of his strange genius,” Gadaleto said.

A big puzzle box

Throughout the play, and especially in his five memorable monologues, we watch as Hamlet struggles with his own identity, constantly recreating himself — angry avenger, scheming politician, cruel lover, melancholy philosopher, a man insane or just pretending to be.

“Shakespeare learned how to write a character who’s making it up as he goes. That’s so true of Hamlet,” said Peter G. Phialas Distinguished Professor David Baker, who’s been teaching “Hamlet” for 20 years. “‘Hamlet’ is a big puzzle box. It’s always pleased audiences. It’s somehow had that ability to be an intellectual brain-bender and also a barnstorming success.”

Because Shakespeare opened the door to multiple interpretations of Hamlet and his motives, actors and directors have famously put their own spins on his story. Some of the better-known 20th-century versions include Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 lush Victorian-era political thriller and Laurence Olivier’s 1948 psychological study, heavy on the prince’s Oedipal relationship with the queen.

Creative interpretations

The PlayMakers production, which runs Jan. 25-Feb. 19, is the second of two creative interpretations of the classic staged on campus in the 2022-23 academic year. In both the upcoming production and the earlier presentation at Carolina Performing Arts, a woman plays the lead role of Hamlet. Members of both companies discussed their nontraditional approach to the classic play in a public forum called“Thy Name Is Woman: A Conversation.”

The Toronto-based Why Not Theatre performed “Prince Hamlet” at Memorial Hall in October. Inthe bilingual remix directed by Ravi Jain, Hamlet’s friend Horatio, played by deaf woman actor Dawn Jani Birley, tells the story. Because the actors perform in a combination of spoken English and American Sign Language, the audience experiences some of the same conflicting perspectives and confusion as the characters onstage.

“Hamlet”

PlayMakers Repertory Company

Jan. 25-Feb. 19

Ticket prices start at $20, $10 for UNC students.

See the complete list of performance dates and times and purchase tickets online.

A streaming-only performance will be available on demand Feb. 9-12 for $25.

“Director Ravi Jain’s ‘Prince Hamlet’ not only asks who gets to tell the story of Hamlet, it also demonstrates that the narrator’s telling impacts the audience’s feeling of belonging, over the story and in the theater,” said Amanda Graham, CPA’s associate director of engagement.

‘Retro-futuristic’ setting

The PlayMakers show also reimagines “Hamlet” in a variety of ways. Not only is Hamlet being played by faculty and company member Tia James, a Black woman, as part of a Black royal family, Horatio and Laertes are women, and everyone is not heterosexual.

The setting is what Benesch calls “retro-futuristic,” a time 30 years in the future but without high tech in evidence and people still wearing cloaks and fighting with swords. Live music plays throughout, and the set design includes musical motifs like organ pipes. “It’s a psychological thriller and a family drama about how we play each other and get played,” she said.

But the words are the same, Benesch said. Except for pronouns changed to match the nontraditional casting, Shakespeare’s text remains intact.

“Every great regional theater should continue to revisit this great piece,” she said. Although PlayMakers often performs Shakespeare in their season, it’s been 30 years since they have staged “Hamlet.”

Benesch said theater companies are constantly looking to draw in traditional audiences as well as attract new theatergoers looking for something more inclusive. A fresh take on “Hamlet” can do both. “I like to challenge the purists,” she said. “As long as the story of the play is still being told, then how wonderful to explore it through a new lens.”

There exists a problem in classic literature and it resides in the presentation of women. They are rarely given any agency, any sense of control over their fates, and are, instead, merely fodder for whatever Hero’s Journey the male lead endures. It’s not uncommon in our modern era for imaginative retellings of other classics to offer a renewed look at the stories we think we know. Author Seth Grahame-Smith attempted this with his 2009 reimagining of Jane Austin’s Pride & Prejudice by adding zombies into the mix. His retelling made the women warriors, though it remained quite confined to Austin’s work. Perhaps this is what makes the cinematic adaptation by director Claire McCarthy (The Waiting City) of Lisa Klein’s 2006 novel Ophelia so compelling and rich. It acknowledges Shakespeare’s original play, Hamlet, but the version the audience knows largely remains in the shadows. This provides an incredible opportunity to mold a story of power and conviction around a character who’s been neglected and abused since the 16^th century. In the hands of McCarthy, screenwriter Semi Chellas (American Woman), and Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) in an emotionally-powered performance, Ophelia makes you believe, for just a moment, that destiny is a thing which can be rewritten. But only for a moment.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, but no one knows it yet. Instead, it’s a time of celebration as King Hamlet (Nathaniel Parker) and his wife Gertrude (Naomi Watts) prepare to send their 15-year old son, Prince Hamlet (Jack Cunningham-Nuttall), to university. As Prince Hamlet prepares to leave, young Ophelia (Mia Quiney) catches the queen’s eye and is enlisted as a handmaiden. Even as the years pass, a curious and strong-willed young girl turns into a confident, independent woman (Ridley) who’s earned the confidence of the Queen and is entrusted with her secrets. All that Ophelia has, however, begins to change as series of terrible incidents around Elsinore Castle beckon the return of Hamlet (George MacKay), setting all on a terrible path of misfortune and pain.

It’s obvious from the beginning of Ophelia that audiences are in for a very specific experience. Via voiceover from Ridley, we’re told “… you may think you know my story …” as she floats in a river, flowers clutched in her hand, just as audiences expect to find her. As the camera pulls in, the body starts to dip below the surface appearing as if slowly consumed by stars radiating from within. The voiceover indicates the specific perspective of the story, the imagery plays into the woeful fate of the much-abused Ophelia, and the stars embed a sense of magic and whimsy. Before a single familiar name is placed before the audience, McCarthy makes it plain what’s going to come next, yet there really is no way to prepare for it. What follows seems, initially, as merely a playful take on the morose tale, but slowly reveals itself as a deeper character examination of the players. Where Hamlet’s focus is broad and loud, Ophelia’s is specific and quiet, offering audiences a “what if” look at the relationships which populate Elisonore Castle, providing an opportunity to create more than icons of villainy but people struggling with loneliness, aging, and the constriction of gender roles.

The ability to dig into characters like Ophelia and Gertrude, and in a small way Uncle Claudius, played with venomous disdain by Clive Owen (Inside Man), is what makes Ophelia more than the self-referential approach audiences have enjoyed in either Tom Stoppard production 1990’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead or 1998’s Oscar winning Shakespeare in Love. Rather than being Hamlet’s words and actions lead the audience to project onto them, the story we know of lust and revenge becomes more concrete through Ophelia’s behind the scenes access as a handmaiden. Few are the villains they seem and lust is born out of resentment and abandonment. Ophelia pulls no punches in its depictions of women’s roles from a historical perspective. Ophelia, for example, is seen as an uncultivated woman because she shuns jewelry, enjoys placing flowers in her hair, and knows how to read thanks to Laertes (played in an understated performance from Tom Felton). Historically, this makes her a bit of a black sheep because a woman of her station would have different ideals in order to attract a mate. Within the confines of Ophelia, these are traits which endear her further to Gertrude and, later, Hamlet. This depictions of Ophelia matters because it is the foundation from which the rest of the characters are compared. How they view her, speak to her, and otherwise engage her all stem from here. Through this, characters like Gertrude are viewed as more than on the page. In Gertrude’s case, she’s given an entire life which expands her beyond the role of Hamlet’s mother, King Hamlet’s widow, or King Claudius’s wife. Like Ophelia, Gertrude is given a chance to take an active role in a story which has so often made her reactionary or a victim.

Solidifying the notion that Ophelia is its own story is the way the narrative consistently places the play in the background. Sometimes this is done literally – in a lovely piece of staging which places Hamlet out of focus in the background as he approaches Laertes for their duel with Ophelia in the immediate foreground walking in sync – though frequently it’s played as something that happens around Ophelia – like the death of her father Polonius (Dominic Mafham). This approach merely serves to remind the audience that certain events must happen in a specific way. Where Ophelia makes its impact is both in what happens outside the events of Hamlet and within them, how the moments outside the play provide a new insight to the moments within, making quite a few more heartrending than as presented by Shakespeare. Much of the credit here goes to Klein for providing the inspiration and to Chellas for the adaptation, but McCarthy’s direction is not to be ignored in presenting these moments. Like the aforementioned staging, the audience is forced to focus on Ophelia and how she is in that moment. We cannot look away as she makes her own choices outside Hamlet’s shadow. The whole film is presented this way, always putting Ophelia’s perspective first and, in doing so, manages to rejuvenate a centuries-old play.

For those of you worry that Ophelia is either some dingy period piece or actors indulging in the challenge of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, let us dispel your concerns now. Though the costumes by Massimo Cantini Parrini (Dogman) do capture the era in the way audiences expect from a Shakespeare production, they are also not driven by flair but by a historical context. As such, so much of Ophelia feels grounded and tangible, even if the elements within sometimes harken back tropes of Shakespeare (ghosts, magic, and witches). This is, of course, backed by a wonderful score from Steven Price (Gravity/Baby Driver) which oscillates between the mythical tone the opening of Ophelia implies while also maintaining sounds of the suggested period, an initially disparate notion which results in a wonderful blend as the music overlays the actions of the narrative. Then there’s the dialogue. Rather than try to replicate the Bard’s words, a more common tongue is utilized without stripping the film of the context of the original dialogue. So, though there’s barely a couplet in the whole film, Ophelia retains the essence of what makes Hamlet continue to resonate.

Some are likely to cry “forced feminism” at the notion of an Ophelia-centric story, one which makes her the victor of her life, not the victim. That would be a reasonable notion until the story begins and it’s clear that Ophelia isn’t a story in the shadow of the #MeToo movement. Rather, Ophelia is a reinterpretation of events which, over and over through the centuries, continue to be told with little to no regard for the women who are at the center of Hamlet’s raging storm. Even if Ophelia is a creation of Lisa Klein, taken for nothing more than fan-fiction, it is still an incredibly moving, emotionally evocative journey which takes the play we know and fleshes it out to feel like a full story. If any story is but an opportunity to evoke emotion, to provoke the mind into believing that the extra-ordinary is real, then Ophelia is a success for no other reason than its ability to make us believe in hope and love over rage and regret.

In select theaters beginning June 28^th, 2019. Available on VOD beginning July 2^nd, 2019.

Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.

Categories: In Theaters, Reviews, streaming

Tags: Adapted From Novel, Angela Nwagbo, based on a book, Claire McCarthy, Clive Owen, Daisy Head, Daisy Ridley, Devon Terrell, Dominic Mafham, George MacKay, Hamlet, IFC Films, Ivo Hanel, Lisa Klein, Martin Angerbauer, Massimo Cantini Parrini, Mia Quiney, Naomi Watts, Nathaniel Parker, Noel Czuczor, Ophelia, Rupesh Tillu, Sebastian de Souza, Semi Chellas, Shakespeare, Steven Price, Talia Brizman, Tom Felton, William Shakespeare

Behind the character of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a line of thousands of actors. They have come to him over and over again, as if he were less a role to play than an artistic pilgrimage. We speak of Olivier’s Hamlet, Burton’s Hamlet, Gielgud’s Hamlet, Richardson’s, Berkoff’s, Kline’s, Hawkes’, Branagh’s, Cumberbatch’s…the list goes on. And we even speak with regret of the Hamlets that might have been: Brando’s, Dean’s, Welles’. We dream of them all, if only to toss them aside as likely to have come up short.

Yet Hamlet will have none of it. The most definitive character of the Western canon is also the most elusive. Every attempt seems a gloss — an approximation of the real thing. And so Shakespeare’s Hamlet has always seemed more of an actor’s play than a director’s; more about an ambitious actor confronting an impossible role than the personal and political struggles of one royal family in Denmark. As a weeping teenager said to me after a rather pedestrian production, “we have lost a beautiful soul.” One might add, that we have lost all the souls determined to bring that soul to life. Enter the graveyard and behold the ghosts. It’s a crowded field.

Mark Jackson knows that. The director and conceptual wizard behind the Shotgun Players’ uplifting and weirdly affecting Hamlet once performed a version of the play, I am Hamlet, in which Hamlet played all the roles himself.

Here, Jackson reverses the equation. Announcing before the performance begins to the audience that the actors have no idea who they’re going to play — and in fact no one does, not even the director himself — he invites the cast of seven on stage. The actors run out with the peppy bonhomie of game show contestants, line up in a row before us, and wait. Who will play Hamlet? And for that matter Claudius, Ophelia, Polonius, Laertes? Jackson pulls the cast list out of Yorick’s skull and assigns the parts one by one. It’s a goofy, curiously intense moment.

You immediately notice that there isn’t a conventional Hamlet in the cast. They are a wonderfully eclectic bunch: men and women, a smattering of ages and races, and, if you follow Bay Area performers, even different acting styles. So the first move Jackson makes in this Hamlet is both to play up and side step the drama of playing Hamlet. There will be a confrontation between actor and role, but one unknown until the very last moment. And this is the rub: what is true for Hamlet will now be true for all the other roles as well. We are plunged into a democracy of infinite possibilities.

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Is that gray-haired man capable of playing the young and tragic Ophelia? Can that young woman possibly understand what it means to be Polonius, an aging stooge to the king? What would an African-American woman bring to Hamlet or Hamlet to her? Every role becomes a question and every cast member an uncertain answer. Even talent, at least how we normally perceive it, loses meaning in this production. Instead, the question becomes one of qualities: how does this particular person, unlikely or perfectly cast, transform the character and, most importantly, the play?

Nick Medina, a revelation all three nights I saw him, opens up aspects of Hamlet that are often unrealized. I always thought of Gertrude as cold, not compassionate. Yet watch him tear up, not showily, when his character watches Ophelia go mad, or his shock when Gertrude realizes that Claudius has no feeling for her son. Here is a young man’s body, wild and forceful, giving subtle expression to the half-formed fears of a middle-aged woman.

And on a different night that same body takes on Ophelia, so that when she goes mad, Medina unleashes a shocking male physicality into Ophelia’s rage. It feels as if she’s being played by a wrestler and it not only works, but it also feels true. We don’t lose the fact that Ophelia’s a young woman, but instead gain the expressive force of brute male strength. I thought he would destroy her costume.

Other actors provide similar chameleon thrills. Kevin Clarke makes for a passionate and precise Hamlet. It’s a thrilling performance. And the next night, he brings those same qualities to Laertes and it unleashes a crazy energy into the production. Beth Wilmurt slips so easily into Polonius that you have to keep reminding yourself that the character is not a woman. So that when he warns Ophelia of the dangers in falling in love with Hamlet, you can’t help but feel that Wilmurt is talking to a younger version of herself — that she once was Ophelia, and ironically in this production, still might be.

The play begins with a ghost. But see the play three times in a row as I did, and it feels as if the entire cast has a touch of the dead and missing about them. Wasn’t Clarke Hamlet’s father the day before he played Hamlet? Megan Trout’s commanding Claudius has strong traces of her equally regal Gertrude. In playing Polonius, Laertes, and Ophelia over successive nights, Cathleen Riddley sketches a beautiful portrait of a most unfortunate family, all victims of Hamlet’s rage. Cast her to type and she would have been the missing wife and mother that the play never mentions.

There are only seven actors in this production, but they produce scores of ghosts, doppelgangers, and strange memories of themselves. It’s a beautiful effect and a unique and rich response to the play.

But given the amount of daring, skill, energy, and focus it must have taken to produce this Hamlet, it goes without saying that you should not expect a perfect production. Jackson’s cut of the play is sharp and smooth, though it sacrifices much of the political statecraft that makes Hamlet such a fascinating public figure, both for Shakespeare’s imagined Denmark and us as well. This is a Hamlet of intense personal feeling, and the production only falters when it takes on some of the play’s more public scenes. These include the opening coronation of Claudius, the staging of the play-within-the-play, and the final fight where a rethinking of the stage combat is needed.

These are all small concerns, though. Everything about this Hamlet, even the in-character calls for the odd forgotten line, is alive to one of the greatest plays in the world. We should be thankful to witness such a circus of daring.

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The initial run of Hamlet plays through Sunday, May 15 at Shotgun Players’ Ashby Stage in Berkeley, and it will continue to run in rep (alongside other plays in the season) through January, 2017. For tickets and information go to www.shotgunplayers.org.

The thing that strikes stage director Paul Radford about “Hamlet” is how modern Shakespeare’s 400-year-old tragedy seems.

There’s spying and surveillance. There are shifting political alliances driven by power.

And there’s the question at the heart of the play: “Do I take action or not?”

“It’s very relevant to today,” Radford said.

Radford’s staging of “Hamlet” opens Thursday for three performances in Bob Jones University’s Rodeheaver Auditorium.

Radford’s 40-member cast features BJU’s faculty, staff and students.

David Schwingle, a BJU theater faculty member, takes on the demanding role of Hamlet, the Danish prince whose father was murdered by the king’s brother, Claudius.

Claudius hastily married the king’s widow, Gertrude, and occupied the throne of Denmark.

Radford’s production evokes a dark atmosphere that foreshadows the play’s famously tragic conclusion, he said.

“It needs to be believable,” Radford said. “Hamlet is going to go down this path of revenge and you know it’s not going to end well. But you have to believably get there. There has to be a sense of inevitability.”

“Hamlet” is one of Shakespeare’s most-often performed plays, with lines and passages that are among the most familiar in the English language.

“Who doesn’t know that ‘To be or not to be’ is from ‘Hamlet’?” said Radford, a BJU associate professor in communication studies.

“Hamlet” is often ranked among the most powerful and influential works in English literature. A full production lasts more than four hours, although Radford’s staging, utilizing some typical cuts, clocks in at about two hours and 30 minutes, he said.

BJU’s association with “Hamlet” reaches back to 1932 at the original BJU campus in College Point, Florida. It was a favorite of the university’s former president, Bob Jones II, who played the title role at least four times through the years. Bob Jones III also performed the role of “Hamlet.”

Two others actors in Radford’s staging — Jeff Stegall and Ron Pyle — have performed the title role on the Rodeheaver stage in the past. BJU last featured the play in 2005.

The role of Hamlet is considered one of the supreme challenges for an actor.

“It’s a huge task,” Radford said.

An old and modern play

The play itself, written between 1599 to 1602, “is as relevant today as it was back then,” Radford said. “You can’t say that about all of Shakespeare’s plays but you can say it about this one.”

Radford looks at today’s presidential politics — he mentions, for instance, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie standing behind his former primary election foe Donald Trump — and sees the sort of ever-changing political alliances that Shakespeare detailed in “Hamlet.”

“You see loyalty and betrayal throughout Hamlet and in today’s politics,” Radford said.

The theme of spying also looms large in the play. Hamlet spies on the king. Polonius spies on Hamlet, with dire consequences.

“There’s a lot of surveillance in ‘Hamlet’ and there’s a lot of that going on worldwide these days,” Radford said. “The story of ‘Hamlet’ is old, but it’s also new.”

Radford’s production features other actors familiar to the Rodeheaver Auditorium stage, including Philip Eoute as Claudius and Erin Naler as Gertrude. The aforementioned Stegall plays Polonius, and Pyle is the Ghost, Player King and Gravedigger.

BJU junior theater major Colton J. Beach has composed new incidental music for the play.

Saturday’s performance of “Hamlet,” coincidentally, will fall on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

For the latest in local arts news and reviews, follow Paul Hyde on Facebook and Twitter: @PaulHyde7.

YOU CAN GO

What: “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare

When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday

Where: Rodeheaver Auditorium at Bob Jones University

Tickets: $30 to $38

Information: 864-770-1372 or visit the website bju.edu/tickets

Once in a while, college theatre students have an opportunity to perform in a heavyweight Shakespearean classic. But rarely do they have the chance to be directed by a regional icon of the genre and in a performance of what’s arguably regarded as a touchstone for English literature.

For the past four weeks, Chapman University’s Professor Thomas F. Bradac has worked with his student cast of 15 in preparation for their February 19 opening of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare in Chapman’s Waltmar Theatre. The entire production is also supported by 24 student crew members who produce everything from costumes, to set construction and lighting. By the time of their first curtain call, the group will have rehearsed for a scant six weeks – a relatively short span of time for a work of such deep meaning and significance.

Hamlet is the story of a young prince who struggles to cope with the sudden death of his father and his mother’s equally sudden and suspect remarriage. The characters explore a rich diversity of emotion and universal themes of humanity, making this work one of William Shakespeare’s masterpiece tragedies.

When presented in its entirety, the performance typically runs four hours in length, excluding any intermissions. Professor Bradac, like many directors, has modified this production for the sake of modern audiences, in part due to verses in the script that require the perspective and contemporary knowledge of an Elizabethan audience to fully understand.

“Few productions of this play go uncut,” explains Bradac. “There are three original versions – we are following the First Folio edition and have reduced it to 2.5 hours. The overall integrity of the story and the use of blank verse, however, remain fully intact.”

Professor Bradac’s theatre career spans more than four decades, most of which has been spent focused on works by the Bard, William Shakespeare. He is the founding artistic director of Shakespeare Orange County, having served the organization from 1992 to 2013, where he directed and produced more than 50 plays. He also founded the Grove Shakespeare Festival (1979-1991), guiding it through 13 seasons in which he produced and/or directed 110 plays. He is also a founding director of the Shakespeare Theatre Association, an international service organization for theatres dedicated to producing Shakespeare, and served as the organization’s President. Bradac has performed, directed, produced, and taught Shakespeare throughout southern California as well as Canada and the Czech Republic; and he has won the prestigious Hollywood Drama Logue Publisher’s Award for Exceptional Achievement in Theatre for his work with Grove Shakespeare Festival, The Helena Modjeska Award for Service to Orange County, CA by OC Weekly and the Kennedy Center/American College Excellence in Education Award for his teaching.

“Hamlet is considered one of the greatest works in the English language because of the depth of understanding of the human condition it portrays,” says Bradac. “There are some aspects of the play that present a challenge to our students simply due to their limited life experience; however, this cast has worked very hard to grasp as much of the subtlety as possible – and they’re doing a terrific job. After all, Hamlet is a college student of sorts, so on that level our actors can relate to him because of his age. When you really get down to it, this story is about a family with problems. And students can identify with it on that level.”

To help the actors prepare, the Theatre department offers two classes in Shakespeare acting that focus on interpreting the text and punctuation that is unique to Shakespeare’s writings, and many of those in the production have taken one or both of the courses. “They learn how to deal with blank verse and make it available to their audience,” says Bradac. “And we spend a great deal of time in rehearsals, helping them to understand what is being said and to whom. One of the reasons this play has endured for over 400 years is that you see something different in it each time. It’s all about the interpretation — where does it come from in the actors….each person brings their own experience.”

Tickets are available now for the popular drama, which runs February 19-21, 26-28 at 7:30 p.m., and March 1 at 2 p.m. Prices are $20 general admission, $15 senior citizens, alumni and non-Chapman students. Visit chapman.edu/tickets or call (714) 997-6812.