"Hamlet" review, OSF Ashland 2010

I'm a local poet and author, who specialized in Shakespeare and especially Hamlet while earning my lit degree from S.O.U. Yesterday, I watched OSF's "Hamlet" production and am going to share my impressions with total honesty. I almost didn't write this letter because of Professor Allan Armstrong's role as text/voice director.

So, the highly difficult job of shortening and modernizing the titanic play fell to him, and I'm pleased to say he did the very finest job I've ever seen(Mel Gibson's version being the very worst in this respect.)

However, I'd like to think Armstrong didn't have as much influence on performance and voice, because there's ample room for improvement. Dan Donohue as Hamlet switches between brilliant and innovative... and one-dimensional and over-acted. However, he has nothing on Jeffrey King as Claudius, who shouts, cackles, and bludgeons the role into a terribly familiar C-movie villain.

Better are Laertes, Polonius, and especially Ophelia(Susannah Flood.) Also fabulous is Christopher Livingston as a gay Osiric.

The lighting, wardrobe, and music are all striking and excellent. However, a hip-hop/street-dance troupe is cast as the travelling players. This could be done well, but their act(which is impressive as of itself) is carelessly glued over the role rather than adapted to it.

Overall, the production is like a great Shakespearean laboratory experiment: full of innovative examples of what can be done with a modern Hamlet... and what should never ever be done. Still, I recommend seeing it.