ARTS & CULTURE

ARTS &

CULTURE

“ranney” as Gravedigger and Sara Clark as Hamlet

PHOTO: MIKKI SCHAFFNER

Changing Tradition

With Sara Clark in the title role, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company o ers new ways to experience Hamlet

REVIEW BY RICK PENDER

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play. If everything he wrote for the piece ends up on stage, a production would take nearly ve hours. And the role of Hamlet — the con icted prince of Denmark, wrestling with how to avenge his father’s murder — is the largest Shakespeare created. It is a character almost always brought to life by a male actor.

None of this applies to Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s (CSC) current production of Hamlet — the running time (with an intermission) is less than two and a half hours, and the title role is played by CSC veteran Sara Clark as a perplexed, ery, witty woman.

e production features many more di erences, too, including the performance’s opening lines. Instead of the traditional rst scene featuring castle guards at night, Hamlet pronounces the show’s most famous soliloquy, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” which typically happens about midway through the play.

Why these changes? Director Sarah Lynn Brown not only staged this production, but she also made the “cutting,” or the rearrangement of the script. By launching immediately into Hamlet’s well-known speech at the late king’s funeral, the audience gets insight into her state of mind right o the bat. With Clark’s precise pausingand-restarting rendition, it’s quickly demonstrated that Hamlet is furious, but uncertain about what’s to be done.

Brown’s rearrangement of material goes much further. e king’s ghost is omnipresent in this production; he is usually portrayed only brie y in the rst scene as he materializes to urge Hamlet to “Remember me!” In fact, all the actors are constantly present, sitting upstage in straight-back chairs, standing for moments of action. e king (played ominously by Jared Joplin) rises from an abstract tomb at center stage and almost never leaves. As various characters meet their demise, he is close at hand, sometimes overseeing a costume change to designate their departure.

In addition to reducing the length of the show, Brown’s adaptation has added material from other Shakespearean works, including Macbeth, Richard III and King John. ese amplify and add texture and motivation to Ophelia (Angelique Archer), whose relationship to a female Hamlet has additional dimensions of confusion, frustration and eventually suicidal madness.

With Hamlet portrayed as a young woman, she and her mother, Queen Gertrude (Sara Mackie), have a di erent relationship than in most productions of the play. Gertrude is compromised because her new husband, King Claudius (Jim Hopkins), is Hamlet’s uncle. He is also Gertrude’s former brother-in-law and the murderer of the king. Mackie’s Gertrude is more sympathetic and maternal than usual in her interactions with Hamlet, tinged with fear and uncertainty. As Claudius, Hopkins employs a smarmy, ingratiating exterior to mask his fears about his crime being uncovered.

Guest actor “ranney” delivers two memorable roles — the loquacious, ponti cating Polonius, and the comicrelief Gravedigger. His latter graveside performance, replete with a handful

A.J. Baldwin as Rosencrantz, Brianna Miller as Guildenstern and Sara Clark as Hamlet

PHOTO: MIKKI SCHAFFNER

Geoffrey Warren Barnes II as Horatio and Sara Clark as Hamlet

PHOTO: MIKKI SCHAFFNER

of skulls and considerable musical ad-libbing, is especially amusing as he spars with Hamlet. Geo rey Warren Barnes II is Hamlet’s steadfast friend and supporter, Horatio. Crystian Wiltshire is Laertes, Ophelia’s ery brother. e conjoined characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (A.J. Baldwin, Brianna Miller) o er several moments of humor, often locked arm-in-arm and moving with exaggerated, self-conscious strides. ey are perfect foils for Hamlet’s stern inquisition regarding their motives and orders, a pair of Tweedledum and Tweedledee sillies who are pawns in a larger, more insidious tale. e rambunctious traveling troupe of Players — actors who present a scene conceived by Hamlet to trick out the king’s and queen’s reactions to the murder plot — are played by Cary Davenport, Colleen Dougherty, Courtney Lucien and Nathan Sullivan.

Dougherty uses a hand-held video camera to provide images, sometimes live-action, sometimes frozen, that are projected onto the broad pallets and oor of Samantha Reno’s abstract set. Especially a ecting are moments of close-up attention to Clark’s expressive face as she studies the royals’ telling expressions to the uncomfortable narrative being enacted.

Particular note should be made of the contributions of Brave Berlin to this production. at name is familiar to people who attended the Lumenocity events at Washington Park from 2013 to 2016 and the BLINK festivals in 2017 and 2019. e creative rm specializes in illusion, speci cally the medium of projection mapping, wherein visual images are designed and projected onto static surfaces to convey realistic or fanciful scenes. eir impressionistic imagery underscores the mood of the action on Reno’s angular set. e e ect is both subtle and profound when combined with Kevin Semancik’s ethereal sound design and Justen N. Locke’s shadowplay stage lighting. ere is little that is traditional about this CSC production, including Abbi Howson’s costumes, which are modern dress. Claudius wears a conservative burgundy business suit; Gertrude is in an aqua pants ensemble with a owing cape. As Hamlet, Clark dons subdued black and indigo jackets and slacks. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern wear loud plaid sport coats, and the late king’s ghost is dressed all in white. at lack of tradition makes this Hamlet all the more compelling. For anyone who’s seen more standard productions, this one requires attention, as material has been moved, reimagined or excised altogether. Brave Berlin’s projections also provide occasional indications of acts and scenes in the original; that’s helpful, but it also underscores how dramatically much of the material has been rearranged.

If you’ve seen a traditional staging of Hamlet, you won’t be confused by this one. In fact, you might appreciate the distillation. Brown’s concise adaptation is certainly less arduous than sitting through four or more hours of theater ( is Hamlet’s two acts are just about one hour apiece, with a 15-minute intermission).

Clark’s female take on Hamlet is refreshing and insightful. All in all, it’s a bracing evening of theater, a demonstration of how and why the works of Shakespeare remain relevant after more than four centuries.

Hamlet, presented by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (1195 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine), continues through March 20. Tickets start at $14. A mask and proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test are required for entry. For more info and tickets, visit cincyshakes.com.

ONSTAGE

REVIEWED BY RICK PENDER

(L to R): Shonita Joshi plays researcher Sanam Shah and Saiyam Kumar plays Wall Street banker Arvind Patel in Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati’s production of Queen.

PHOTO: RYAN KURTZ

In Madhuri Shekar’s Queen, currently onstage at Ensemble eatre Cincinnati, a pair of Ph.D. candidates are on the brink of a major research breakthrough regarding colony collapse disorder, a mysterious — and real — plague that is destroying honeybee colonies.

At the University of California-Santa Cruz, Ariel Spiegel (Jordan Trovillion) is an impassioned biologist with a past in beekeeping. Her research partner, Sanam Shah (Shonita Joshi), is a more introverted statistician. Ariel is also a stressed single mother who needs academic success to advance her career and provide for her daughter. Sanam, the daughter of successful Indian immigrants, is more buttoned-down and still single, despite her parents’ pressure to consider marriage. Despite their di erences, the women are also best friends, sharing beers and comparing notes about their lives.

Under pressure from their academic advisor, Dr. Philip Hayes (Ryan Wesley Gilreath), the women have advanced to the point of releasing their ndings. Philip is just days away from speaking at a major scienti c conference and the

Queen explores the intersection of research and friendship as ethical questions rise to the surface.

PHOTO: RYAN KURTZ

publication of the study in a prominent journal should cap o a rousing long-term project. But there’s a hitch: Sanam’s statistical modeling has gone awry. After several years of pointing directly to a pesticide manufactured by agrochemical company Monsanto as the reason for colony collapse, additional data recently added has reduced the certainty of their ndings.

Philip is pressing for clear-cut good news to advance his own career, and Ariel sees the project as her path to academic stardom. But principled Sanam is hesitant to move forward by unethically tinkering with the data.

Playwright Shekar tricks this out further by sending Sanam on a blind date with Arvind Patel (Saiyam Kumar), a hotshot Wall Street banker her parents have urged her to meet because their respective grandfathers played golf together. Sanam is distracted by her o -the-rails research ndings but meets with Arvind. He rambles on about some high-stakes poker he’s won, and his arrogant bragging initially triggers Sanam’s notion that he might provide some insight into where her calculations have gone wrong.

Instead, their conversation leads her to the revelation that the research has been biased. Ariel and Sanam’s friendship is jeopardized as they argue over the ethics of proceeding. When they meet with Philip, he dismisses their concerns and accuses them of PMS — “Publication Misery Syndrome,” a veiled threat to women working in a maledominated research area. He orders them to assemble their outcomes in a way that masks the discrepancy.

As these con icts unfold, Shekar’s script presents a lot of science and statistics — perhaps too much for many audiences — even though her writing translates complex theories into explanations that are generally understandable, if perhaps too extensively presented. e production uses beautifully produced video on side screens, especially lmed images of bees collecting pollen (Sam Womelsdorf is the projection designer) that are shown during scene changes. e videos also display a startling, multiplying array of formulas as Sanam and Arvind try to navigate where her research has taken a wrong step.

Staged by veteran local director Bridget Leak, these ne actors combine for an entertaining evening of theater. Joshi portrays pleasant, serious Sanam in a wonderfully textured and con icted manner. Her friendship with feisty Ariel is genuine, but she struggles with compromising her scienti c principles. Sanam’s personal concerns, complicated by her friendship with Ariel and her attraction to Arvind, seem very human.

As Ariel, Trovillion handles the singularly obsessive character with discipline but does not get to show a more complex set of values until the show’s nal moments. Gilreath and Kumar’s male roles — an egotistical academic and an egotistical nancier — are more foils than fully drawn people. As Philip, Gilreath presents us with a super cially kind mentor who is ultimately manipulating the women for his own professional bene t. Kumar gives Arvind some jaunty charm, but the character is fundamentally presumptuous and obnoxious.

In the end, Shekar’s play suggests that the weight of scienti c proof outweighs the desire for political and academic success, and friendship triumphs. But the relationships are not entirely convincing. Ariel’s anger and Arvind’s ippancy feel forced. Nevertheless, Queen is an intriguing endeavor to explore ethical issues of academic pursuit and scienti c research that have meaning and purpose.

Queen, presented by Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati (1127 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine), continues through March 19. Tickets are $55 for adults, $29 for students and $27 for children. A face mask and proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test are required for entry. Get more info and tickets at ensemblecincinnati.org.