This is not the “Hamlet” of Laurence Olivier or Kenneth Branagh. With its woodgrain set, jewel-toned lightning, and Viking-era costumes complete with fur collars and leather accents, it stands apart.
For the first time in his 25-year teaching career, Director and Associate Professor of Theatre James Brandon is presenting William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” It premiered last night in the Markel Auditorium, with shows tonight through Nov. 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 19 at 2 p.m.
“I knew ‘Hamlet’ would be a big show, regardless of whatever cuts I made to it,” Brandon said. “With the amount of activity we have in the department right now, I have just come to the point where now is the time to do it.”
In addition to the novelties the Tower Players add, this production presents the classic themes of grief, insanity, love, and revenge.
The story begins after the death of Hamlet’s father and the hasty remarriage of his mother, Queen Gertrude, played by junior Heather Hobson, to his uncle King Cladius, played by senior Chris Dick. Hamlet, played by senior Jack Leatherwood, juggles a visitation by the ghost of his father while pursuing his love interest, Ophelia, played by senior Mary Kate Kearney. He navigates this terrain as he slowly devolves into lunacy.
“There’s little sense of nervousness toward performing what is considered to be the greatest English character, and a lot of English professors love this play, so there’s this fear of wanting to do it justice,” Leatherwood said. “But I’m also excited since I am offering my Hamlet. It’s different to the sort of preconceived notion of who Hamlet is.”
The cast features 30 different actors. In eight weeks of rehearsal, the cast blocked three hours worth of scenes, working with fight choreographer Chloe Whiting-Stevenson and constructing a transportative environment.
“The story is pretty vibrant,” Brandon said. “These are 10th-century Vikings. I really wanted to capture them as rough, more barbaric people, but they’re also really lively, so I went with the Viking motif with my design.”
Brandon said costumes and lighting were a crucial part of developing the setting.
“It’s a collaboration with our lighting designer and our costume designer, giving people a motivated look,” Brandon said. “Some will take that line, ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,’ and they apply it to every visual, and it’s really cool. But, I didn’t want to do that. We’re not restricted to some kind of drab interpretation of ‘Hamlet.’ I just think it’s more visually interesting.”
With a classic Shakespeare work, many actors said the pressure is significantly increased in the interests of being both honest to the original script and individual in their presentation of it.
“I think I’ve offered a colorful Hamlet,” Leatherwood said. “Hamlet is more than just this kind of sulky, sad little boy who’s depressed. He’s a leader. He’s strong. He’s funny. He’s a person.”
Leatherwood said this focus on the personhood of Hamlet is true to life.
“Even in the midst of grief, in the midst of sadness, you’re still gonna find joyful moments in life,” Leatherwood said. “He still loves his friends and still wants to be with them. And yet he’s in this kind of unfortunate circumstance with these very weighty things. It’s like balancing those two.”
As deadlines for term papers and final assignments approach, three hours may seem like a big undertaking for students. If not only for the aesthetic experience, the production’s famous soliloquies, Ophelia’s devolution into her own insanity, and the ending duel scene between Hamlet and Laertes, played by senior Kenton Baer, offer a worthy incentive.
“There’s action,” Baer said. “There’s a lot of fight choreography. There’s sword fighting, there’s spousal abuse, which shouldn’t be the draw, but it is action nonetheless. If you’re somewhat familiar with the story, then you come to watch the whole thing. It really is a cool story.”
The core leads are exceptional. Leatherwood, Kearney, Baer, Dick, Hobson, senior Nikoleta Klikovac as Horatio, and senior John Tasseff as Polonius, embody adult Vikings as 21st century college students.
They also manage to play these characters not as aloof, stagnant tenants of the Western canon, but as deeply present, relatable people, even through old English dialogue.
“My character — while facing his own demises — kind of gets to see other characters also face their demise,” Baer said. “I think that does strike a chord because I feel like I have seen people kind of go crazy in real life a little bit. So in those scenes, it’s not the hardest thing to conjure up some pity.”
The ensemble members bolster the show during their particular scenes, but also in regard to audience buy-in. They help build the world in an honest way, directing focus and even translating what is going on through their body language.
They all make choices. Brandon said this is a necessary part of his job as well from casting 30 people to casting male roles as females to abridging the play from the original four hours to just under three.
“When you decide to do a script, especially a familiar script, like Hamlet, every decision you make has the potential to piss somebody off,” Brandon said. “Oscar Wilde says it best when he says, ‘When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself,’ the idea being that the artist is making decisions. For me, it’s like, let’s make one choice and from that choice, the next follows and you end up with a production about 1,000 choices later.”