Don't feel bad if you don't know who Bernard Marie Koltes is. But you really should. Think of a cross between David Lynch and Quentin Tarrantino except grounded more in non-fictional political realities. Yeah. Seriously—get on it.
“The Day of Murder in the History of Hamlet” is play number 3 in 7Stages' ten-year commitment to translating and producing 6 of Bernard Marie Koltes's plays, and judging by the number of butts in seats the night I saw the play, I fear that this may be another internationally significant piece of theater developed in Atlanta that has to leave the city to get a decent audience turnout.
That's not to say I think this play is entirely appropriate for its Atlanta audience—despite the thoroughly modern staging and seriously beautiful sound, set, lighting, and costume design which artists around Atlanta should take note of--unfortunately the play makes no attempt to contextualize itself...while the story of Hamlet is supposedly timeless, I am unclear what relevance an abandoned adaptation written in the mid-70s in France has to people living in Atlanta today.
The Day of Murders...distills Shakespeare's famous drama into a stale-mate of four characters: Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius, and Gertrude. These characters all get the stage-time together that they never receive in the original and have access to more matured existentialist references and more modern communication devices and complications of privacy, giving this Hamlet a texture that is more dynamic, but a bit dryer than Shakespeare's.
It is too easy to rail on this play as an overly-intellectual and ultimately inconsequential deconstruction of Hamlet, but that is not what is exciting here...what really caught me about this play is the moment-to-moment specificity the artists bring to the text and to the myth of Hamlet itself. The characters--self-indulgent pill-popping French new-wave types--drag themselves across the stage like zombies, stoned, drunk, and paranoid, searching for the justice, companionship, and peace-and-quiet that remains forever out-of-reach to the rich and powerful. Anna Simonton as Ophelia maintains a secret garden of dry muffins amongst the ash-trays and liquor bottles of the castle, keeping her blood-sugar just above pass-out level, and Joey Boren tip-toes and evaporates as Hamlet and treats each second on stage as part of a beautiful, albeit self-indulgent suicide ritual, tormented by not only the betrayal of his uncle and mother but also the torture of his mortal coil altogether. In this play, Hamlet is his father's ghost. Claudius (Isma'il ibn Conner) and Gertrude (Kate Moran) are the vampires to Hamlet and Ophelia's zombies. They seem to suck blood and fuck throughout the play with the violent exuberance of coke-heads. Conner in particular shows absolutely no vulnerability as Claudius which thematically works, but might be frustrating to those looking for an actor revealing his soul or some crap like that.
Yes, the script contains many slippery-sly appropriations of Shakespeare's text a handful of which are within range of the most casual Shakespeare fans and can be like Pokemon to the true buffs (gotta catch em all) but the urge to compare this play to Shakespeare's is counter-productive. This is not a revenge tragedy or a classical drama—there is no brooding or strategizing here, no twisting plot or surprise ending, this Hamlet is an open-wound that festers and bleeds until all of the characters finally die. It can be dry, and I'll admit I am not sure what the point of this play really is, but it contains some beautiful language (Kudos to Jennifer Orth-Veillon for translating), skilled performances, wonderful use of 7Stages' back space, and there is plenty of detail in the staging to justify a second and third viewing (I've already booked my ticket for the final performance)
The surgical-intensity of this play might be its detriment, but I encourage Atlantans to muscle through it as this is one of the least forgettable plays I've seen since moving to this city.
The Day of Murders in the History of Hamlet
Bernard-Marie Koltes
Directed by Thierry de Peretti
04/03/2010 - 04/25/2010
http://www.7stages.org/
Remaining performances:
Thursday, April 22 – 8pm – $17.50
Friday, April 23 – 8pm – $17.50
Saturday, April 24– 8pm – $25
Sunday, April 25 – 5pm - $17.50
$5 off any show for students, seniors, artists, educators, military and Delta SkyMiles members.
Very sexy show. Not scantily clad but sexy. Ophelia going mad goes a wee bit off but that is Shakespeare. And there's the problem. The Shakespeare fan! On the evidence of my lifetime, this fandom cannot be based in the enjoyment of the plays. With odd exceptions, Taming of the Shrew in this very town a few years ago, the theatrical experience is excruciating. So why are there fans? Men in tights? White mans nostalgia for a world he imagines to be his heritage? As accurate as the Renn Faire? A snobs sense of Grandeur? How else do I explain success of the RSC during my life? The best curtain calls in Christendom? This Hamlet redo wrenches the monolith into a theater where it's audience does not want to sit. Just to sit, watch and listen to this Hamlet is the thing and that is what it's audience has lost the courage to do.
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