Hamlet @ Baltimore Shakespeare Festival

[just Ham and his dead dad, chattin', no big deal]

The BSF's plays on the Meadow at Evergreen House are for sure a highlight of any Baltimore summer. There's something about watching Shakespeare outside, away from genteel trappings of an actual physical theater space, that makes the production actually seem more civilized.

I went on Sunday night with my parents to see Hamlet, this year's offering, which was markedly less fancy, staging-wise, than last year's Macbeth. It was just a wooden stage, a rudimentary scaffolding, and some corrugated tin sheeting. The set, I thought, was a little incongruous with the costumes, which seemed period-sensitive. The costumes made the set's bareness seem more a function of pure cost-saving measures.

That aside, this Hamlet was for me, as I imagine a lot of productions are for others, a series of reminders about where certain expressions come from. As my mom joked afterwards, "That play is great, but it's just so full of cliches!" Among them were these:

- "I know a hawk from a handsaw," Hamlet's downplaying of his madness to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, is the origin of the name of the Gypsy-rock band A Hawk and a Hacksaw.

- Hamlet's line from Act I, Scene 4, a bitter remark about the king's carousing after marrying his mother -- "The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse / Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;" -- could be the source of a great name for an Irish music album: "The Up-Spring Reels"

- Ophelia's line about Hamlet, "I that sucked the honey of his madness," is pretty dirty, in retrospect, when you think about what she's talking about.

- That Nick Lowe song, "Cruel to be Kind," comes from a Polonius line.

- "Infinite Jest," the title of the novel I'm currently reading, is a Hamlet reference, and comes from the Yorick scene. My dad also pointed out, that the line, "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well," is never actually spoken in the play. It's one of those mis-heard, mythologized lines, like "Play it again, Sam," which also was never spoken. Someone should put together a list of those.

Aside from a few small quibbles, I thought this was a great production. The "To be or not to be..." speech was delivered to Ophelia, going straight into "Soft you not, fair Ophelia..." which I think is an edit (isn't he onstage alone, delivering his suicide contemplation as a soliloquoy?). Also, the second act ended with Hamlet actual killing Claudius (or fantasizing it -- there was no difference from our perspective) as he prayed, and after intermission we came back and they played the scene again, with Hamlet deciding nah, I'll wait until he's good and sinnin' again. That was odd. Also, at the very end of the play, Hamlet's line is, "I die, and the rest is silence." But Dan Crane, the lead actor who played Hamlet with a really great physical presence most of the time (confidently striding everywhere), and whose sense of humor onstage showed that he really gets the text and has pretty much internalized it, said, "I die, and the rest is _____," straight into Horatio's chorus-like end speech. That was edgy, I guess, and not terribly important overall in the play, but we sort of felt cheated.

Other highlights included Emily Clare Zempel's performance as Ophelia. When she wandered off to drown herself, she exited the stage, tearing apart some flowers, and walked out through the audience mumbling "God be with you," creepily, over and over again, walking in the general direction towards the stream that runs through Evergreen. That was cool. I also thought that Bruce R. Nelson's performace as the ghost of King Hamlet was really great. It was like watching a guy with really bad nerves trying to ply his son for some favor. And that's essentially what the ghost does to his son. Off-putting, however, was the fact that Nelson also played Claudius, which brings up all sorts of metaphysical questions that have to be suspended for the play to make sense.

I highly recommend this production, before it goes off at the end of the month. Bring a picnic and a few bottles of wine. Get there early. Enjoy.