Hamlet

Let me begin at the end.

Place: Central Park. Time: almost 11:45 p.m. Play: Hamlet. Spirits: low.

Fortinbras and his army have entered Denmark at last, signaling the end. Hamlet has just died—poisoned in the duel scene—and is probably glad to be out of it. The king, the queen, Laertes, Ophelia, Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—all now dead. Only decent Horatio survives—someone, according to W. H. Auden, who’s “not too bright, though he has read a lot and can repeat it.”

Oskar Eustis’ disappointingly literal production had been an uphill slog, and I mistakenly assumed the director would end in the conventional way: At Fortinbras’ command, four captains bear the body of Hamlet away like a soldier.  read more »

Elizabeth LeCompte’s latest avant-garde experiment in high-tech disorientation and miked automatons might be described as the world’s first karaoke production of Hamlet.  read more »