Hamlet
The Betsy Stage: Through
November 22
Gina Walker (Gertrude) and Patti Murtha(Hamlet)
Since I had been to see one of the shows at
The Betsy Stage earlier this year I had a semi sorta kinda maybe notion of what
they were up to. The powers that be at this venue, whose productions are free
to the public, like to use Shakespeare as a blueprint and then press their own
matrix over it.
In this case “Hamlet” is subsumed by the
culture of the gypsies. The genders are often reversed in these productions
such that Hamlet becomes a woman and Ophelio a man. And… one is mystified at
seeing that Orsino’s words from the opening of Twelfth Night and those of that
bloody Dude in the Scottish play rear their heads from time to time as well!
However … there are enough creative strokes and flourishes that one is
entertained and amused. And although I did not greatly appreciate their
“adaptation” of “King Lear,” last spring, this one’s bizarre “Ham”-miness was
‘pork for the general’ as concerns this transmogrification of the Bard’s
masterpiece.
L-R: Gypsy Campfire (left to right) - Jaycee Sanchez (Marcellus); Dave Coumo (Francisco); Adwin Gallo (Taloche); Tim McGrath (Horatio); Shelby Latrop (Chavi); Christopher Wells (Osrick)
The acting is all over the map.
It is, however, developed around a colorful
stage design depicting a gypsy camp behind a circus tent.
Belly dancing women tossing scarves in the
air - and then catching them - bridge the scenes.
The overall effect of this show is that
someone has been told the story of Hamlet and the story of the gypsies on the
same day and got the two mixed up. Imagine a mash-up of these two produced by a
group of aspiring thespians with a string of Christmas lights, some scarves and
without the requisite funding for a show.
There are several
threads of silliness that run throughout the reinvented text allowing such
moments as the actress playing Gertrude to sputter such lines as: “My husband
killed my husband?”
Among the other
amusing oddities – and they are legion! –is one melodramatic moment in which
Hamlet sends her mother to “a nunnery.”
There are a few more
things you may be surprised to discover about the Bard’s characters in this version
of the story of the Great Dane! You’ll need to discover these for yourselves.
The onstage band made
up of organ, guitar and some instruments not usually heard in the repertoire
allow for a thoroughly enlivening acoustic experience.
So as Desdemona says to
Caliban…"
Or was that Orsino????
“All the rest is silence.”
The Betsy Stage
presents
"Hamlet"
A gypsy camp, with
its family of performers and musicians, is the perfect place to tell our
Hamlet.
Oct. 3 - Nov. 22
Fri./ Sat. @ 8p.m.
*No Performance Oct
31
Cost: FREE
(donations accepted)
Seating is limited
and this show has been selling out.
The Betsy
Stage, 1133 S. Huron St. Denver, CO 80223
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