Lee Street Theatre's "I Hate Hamlet"
Lee Street Theatre's "I Hate Hamlet"
An out-of-work television star and the ghost of John Barrymore fence over the value of Shakespeare in the modern era.
In Paul Rudnick’s I Hate Hamlet, primetime television star Andrew Rally (Timothy Hager) is fresh off a starring run in a career-defining hospital drama. Confidence shaky, he has accepted the role of Hamlet at New York City’s Shakespeare in the Park. In preparation for the show’s run, his realtor Felicia (Amy Hope Lambert) has bullied him into a Manhattan penthouse once owned by golden age Hollywood legend John Barrymore.
Rally is surrounded by the help of his friends. His whimsical girlfriend Deirdre (Lindsay Litka-Montes) is as enthusiastically supportive as any partner could be. His stately German agent Lillian (Mary Ann McCubbin) and his unsavory yet loyal industry friend Gary (Andrew Williams) frequently drop by to offer career advice and discuss the opportunities before him.
The ensemble is practiced and the chemistry is undeniable. No matter what orientation of characters we get on stage, this production of I Hate Hamlet delivers tight, effortless comedy. Rudnick’s script is generous with each character, and at Lee Street we see each them for who they are instantly.
Following a botched attempt to contact Felicia’s dead grandmother, John Barrymore’s ghost has traveled to this mortal plane. Now, he cannot exit until his reluctant protege, Rally, takes up the Hamlet mantle and performs the show in front of an audience. While everyone on stage at Lee Street pours themselves admirably into this show, it is Rod Oden as Barrymore’s ghost who steals it.
“He was tender, and virile, and witty. And dangerous,” Orson Welles said of the real John Barrymore’s Hamlet. The source of the Shakespearean caricature we can all conjure in our minds, Barrymore was famous for swinging emotional dynamics and a maudlin intensity. Oden accesses these with kinetic joy. His lusty, unabashed Barrymore is and must be magnetic, pulling Hager’s Rally up and out of his funk.
Indeed, after the intermission audiences see an Andrew Rally who has fully absorbed the example of his spectral tutor. Dressed for a performance and with generous codpieces both, Hager and Oden bring double Barrymore energy to the stage, a delightful payoff to the friction that drove the comedy in the first half.
At Lee Street I Hate Hamlet remains less an homage to the plays of Shakespeare than it does a tribute to acting in them. Sure, audiences in Salisbury will see a few excerpts from the greatest play ever written, but the heart of I Hate Hamlet is shown in reflections – both visual and verbal – upon performance itself.
Fans of the Bard may notice sneaky moments of Shakespearean blocking conventions, the ensemble oriented on the stage like so many group scenes from the comedies. Hager and Oden’s impromptu fencing scene is beautifully choreographed, the swashbuckling accompanying Rally as he projects his insecurities, trying to break down Barrymore’s indefatigable chutzpah. As Rally lists all of Barrymore’s well-documented shortcomings, the ghost says none of them matter up against the exhilaration of his first performance as the Prince of Denmark:
“I shook them, I wooed them, and I said, yes, you will stay, and yes, you will remember! And for one moment in my life, I used all that I knew, every shred of talent, every ounce of gall!... I played Hamlet! Have you?”
Oden, intentionally or not, adds a layer to this speech. As its executive artistic director, Oden is the Lee Street Theatre’s ambassador to the community. Anyone who has been to a show here has seen this “strange and alluring” man’s entertaining curtain speeches, introductions which precede every performance. It is Barrymore’s only truly serious turn in the play, and it may also be the only time folks see Rod Oden as anything other than lighthearted. While he is not the “hopeless, unemployable lush” that Barrymore admits here to becoming, it is still a welcome treat to see Oden flex his theatrical bona fides. The man can act. Even without this context, it is the finest moment of the play.
Down to its final moments, I Hate Hamlet is a love letter to the act of acting itself. To bring this off properly, a theater needs performers who can swim in a text with joy and freedom, no matter how serious or silly the text may be.
You can still see those performers on stage at Lee Street this weekend.
Friday, May 24 at 7:30
Saturday, May 25 at 7:30