Tragedy and Madness Shine in ETC’s Hamlet
IMPOSING SLABS OF BRUTALIST GREY SLASHED WITH SHARP LIGHTING sets the Nordic Noir atmosphere of Ensemble Theatre Company’s new Hamlet, which premiered last Saturday at the New Vic. A triumph of mood and character, deeply engaging and highly entertaining, the production is atmospheric yet shot through with biting humor, poetic yet grounded in viscerally emotional performances.
In director Margaret Shigeko Starbuck’s hands, Hamlet makes royal intrigue personal, and makes madness, loss, and betrayal maniacal fun. The dark cold setting serves as a backdrop, a foreboding place for what is to come: murder, manipulation, and the price of family loyalty.
The stage is contrasted nicely with a modern wardrobe that is more grounded, that even compliments Hamlet’s is-he-mad-or-not act with the kind of all day pajamas that comes with depression and brooding. The soundtrack is more ambient tension than notable music, and ratchets up the suspense as the story unfolds. Beyond the richness of the visual/audio subtext, however, Hamlet is also a thriller, as it should be, and will have you on the edge of your seat, whether you know the outcome or not.
This interpretation of Hamlet examines the idea that the Melancholy Prince is merely playing mad, as a means to an end. Will Block, in the title role, does an impressive job of signaling this. His frenetic shifting of gears between a nudge and wink to his allies (See? I’m not really crazy) to fully inhabiting the madness, living in the moment, is bracing to see. Block hooks the audience into his mania early on and, in my case, I went happily along for the ride.
Within this mania, however, are acidic moments of humor that Block delivers razor sharp, and to great effect. Ana Nicolle Chavez, playing Ophelia, rises to these beats, smartly matching his energy in their scenes together. She holds her own as she slips into a deep, grieving madness after her father’s death. She steals the show when she is on stage, and her final scene, weaponizing karaoke to level against those who would harm her, is brilliantly funny and terrifying at the same time.
Every actor had a moment to shine, and they did. Corey Jones, playing Claudius, was captivating in his confessional soliloquy—and then, a few scenes later, equally so as he returns to the sly manipulator in pursuit of power, a side of him that he just cannot shake. A truer villain than ever, Claudius is wracked with guilt and yet unable to stop himself from targeting Hamlet with absolute malice.
Paige Lindsey White, as Gertrude, navigates that delicate place of feeling complicit to the crimes being committed and yet is still her son’s mother. She is painfully aware that all is not well, and yet she seems to earnestly want it all to go away. White occupies that space gracefully.
And Rafael Goldstein, as Laertes, vibrates with the earnest good will of the young and carefree, in the beginning—but when he returns, hell bent on revenge, he is a powder keg on the verge of exploding, a grim foreshadowing of the tragedy to come.
Hamlet is on record as the world’s most performed play, somewhere around tens of thousands of times since its debut around 1600. Perhaps finding new ideas within its text is impossible, but the soil is rich with centuries of interpretations and remixes, zeitgeist and era. What ETC has done, here, is till the creative soil to the particular talents of its director and actors, and allowed that space to grow an entertaining, engaging, and very gripping family drama. It’s something ETC seems to excel at. Of their last two seasons, I can say this production is their finest work yet.
