Hamlet (review)

Reviewed by: Hamlet Amy Rodgers Hamlet Presented by the Sandra-Feinstein Gamm Theater at the Pawtucket Armory Annex, Pawtucket, Rhode Island. November 3–December 18, 2011. Directed by Fred Sullivan, Jr. Set by Patrick Lynch. Costumes by Marilyn Salvatore. Lighting by Matthew Terry. Sound by David Tessier. Fights by Norman Beauregard. Dramaturg Jennifer Madden. With Tony Estrella (Hamlet), Steve Kidd (Claudius), Jeanine Kane (Gertrude), Sam Babbitt (Polonius), Kelby T. Akin (Laertes), Gillian Williams (Ophelia), Marc Dante Mancini (Horatio), Tom Gleadow (Old Hamlet, First Gravedigger, First Player), Joe Short (Guildenstern, Francisco), Ben Gracia (Rosencrantz), Richard Noble (Osric), Tom Denucci (Fortinbras), Vince Petronio (Marcellus, Lucianus, Norwegian Captain, Second Gravedigger), and David Tessier (Player, Sailor, Priest, Musician). The Gamm Theater’s twenty-seventh season took on a variety of dystopic narratives, ranging from the political (1984) and cosmic (Boom!) to the domestic (Festen). Fittingly, the season’s centerpiece was Hamlet, Shakespeare’s drama of familial, lineal and subjective fragmentation. But this production held another significance for the Gamm: in 1997, Fred Sullivan Jr., in his first year as the theatre’s resident director, agreed to work with twenty-five year old Tony Estrella in the title role. Fourteen [End Page 344] years later, Sullivan and Estrella (now the Gamm’s artistic director) revisited their initial collaboration. The result was a nuanced, character-driven production that largely steered clear of gimmicky updating and heavy-handed attempts at political “relevance.” Set in the 1950s, the production illustrated its historical situatedness mostly through Marilyn Salvatore’s costuming. The women looked stunning in Mad Men-esque cinched-waist dresses and coiffed hair; the men’s costumes included wonderful details, such as Polonius’s purple silk pocket square and Rosencrantz’s argyle sweater. Sets were minimal, consisting mostly of mobile pieces of furniture—a throne, a plank bed for Gertrude’s closet scene, a small table for the wine goblets at the play’s end. The backdrop was hung with deep scarlet draperies, which were torn down with brutal efficiency by Fortinbras’s soldiers directly after Hamlet’s departure for England. The sudden shift from rich, soft crimson to chalky-white plaster suggested the barren desolation left at the play’s end; indeed, the first scene to occur in this “new” setting was Ophelia’s mad scene. The Gamm performs in an intimate, black-box theatre that is ideal for showcasing actors rather than production values. An experienced Shakespeare actor with a natural dynamism, Estrella was neither a brooding, reticent post-adolescent nor of a species I call “temper-tantrum Hamlet” (examples include Branagh’s 1996 film portrayal and more recently Ben Carlson’s 2008 Stratford, Ontario rendition). This Hamlet was profoundly thoughtful, a young man who lives largely in his head and cannot escape its confines. In his first appearance (1.2), he entered quietly with the procession and sat down on a step located at downstage right, while Claudius and Gertrude proceeded to center stage. During Claudius’s “auspicious and dropping eye” speech, Estrella stared off into the middle distance with a kind of unfocused horror, giving the impression that his mental state was less a direct result of his mother’s overhasty marriage to his uncle and more a result of the collision between this event and his already-present psychological demons. When Claudius touched Hamlet’s shoulder in a gesture of familial intimacy, he winced as if scalded—a reaction that set the tone for Hamlet’s physical persona. Kinetic, restless, and displaying twitchy mannerisms, Estrella suggested the character’s youth through unrelenting proprioception rather than emotional immaturity. The result was a sympathetic and complex Hamlet, one who tries but fails to withstand the unfortunate combination of genuine misfortune and emotional disequilibrium which seems built in to his psyche. It was not only the chiaroscuro quality of Estrella’s performance which knit the production together; his presence seemed to unite the cast in [End Page 345] easy camaraderie and devotion, qualities not always present even in longstanding repertory companies. Equally significant in creating this rapport was Gamm veteran Sam Babbitt, whose performance seemed to elevate every actor that shared the stage with him. A marvelous combination of doddering charm, recalcitrant short-sightedness, and genuine...

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