WASHINGTON -- These are tense times in the nation's capital. Lawmakers are hotly debating climate change, fretting about oil spills and haggling over financial regulations, all under the threatening cloud of midterm elections.
But just three blocks away from the halls of Congress, the Folger Shakespeare Theatre offers a reality check: Things could be worse. The leader of the land hasn't died under mysterious circumstances, ghosts aren't roaming the Capitol porticos at night and no crazy graduate students are running around saying, "To be, or not to be - That is the question."
Yes, it's "Hamlet," but this isn't the Washington insider edition. This is the Tar Heel production, with cast, crew and creative team all connected to PlayMakers Repertory, the professional theater company based at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Directed by Joseph Haj, the artistic director of PlayMakers, "Hamlet" opened last month at the Folger Shakespeare Library, a world-renowned center dedicated to the study and performance of Shakespeare. The library, founded in 1932, rivals England's best collections of Renaissance documents. But because the theater has no full-time staff, artistic producer Janet Griffin is always looking for top-notch guest directors. In 2006, Griffin traveled to Chapel Hill to see Haj direct "Cyrano de Bergerac." She came away convinced that she should bring Haj to Washington. Someday.
"We only do three shows a year here, so I chose very carefully," Griffin said.
Two years later, she returned to see PlayMakers' "Pericles," a production Haj directed featuring music by Jack Herrick of the Red Clay Ramblers. "I just thought it was very smart and clear and moving, as well as entertaining," Griffin said. "And to get that out of a play as difficult as 'Pericles,' I thought, 'This guy has a lot going on.' "
So she and Haj started talking about other lesser-known Shakespearean plays that he could direct at the Folger. Griffin pitched "Troilus and Cressida," an obscure tragedy, but Haj turned her down. The Folger is a small, three-tiered proscenium theater modeled after an Elizabethan playhouse. It seats just 250 people. Intimacy is great, but not for plays with 26 characters.
"So then we started talking about 'Hamlet,' " Griffin said. She was shocked to learn that despite Haj's two-decade career acting and directing at the country's most respected theaters, he had never done "Hamlet."
"It's just kind of the most important play in the English language," Griffin said.
"It's funny," Haj said. "I have done 'Titus Andronicus.' I've done three 'Pericles,' but somehow, I've never gotten 'Hamlet,' right smack in the middle of Shakespeare's hit parade."
And now he has. And what a memorable "Hamlet" it is.
At Haj's direction, the set designer enshrouded the normally dark brown arches of the Folger theater in white. Imagine an ultra-modern loft in Copenhagen, furnished with the finest thrones from IKEA, and you have the idea. But it's not just an aesthetic choice, it's how Haj interprets the play.
"It's a bright, white world where a secret doesn't have a chance," the director said. "The setting is contemporary - we're keeping it in Denmark - but at no distinct time or date."
Trendy costumes
Jan Chambers, a UNC professor currently on sabbatical, designed the costumes. After suiting up a cast of 25 for "Nicholas Nickleby" last fall, you would think dressing a dozen actors for a contemporary "Hamlet" would be easy. Not so.
"I have never in my life done so much shopping for one show," Chambers said. "Normally I keep my receipts in an envelope. This time I have a three-inch binder."
Haj wanted Ophelia, Hamlet's love interest turned damsel-in-distress, to be 19 or 20. Chambers shopped at Anthropologie and H&M, taking home trendy outfits and asking her own college-age daughter for approval. It was actually harder to find boots than frocks. "[The actress] wears a 5 1/2," Chambers said.
Actress Lindsey Wochley may have tiny feet, but this is "a big shoe show," Chambers said. She bought boots and dress shoes for 10 men. The text indicates that it's winter in Elsinore - " 'Tis bitter cold," one watchman remarks to another in the opening scene - but Chambers had to do most of her shopping in March and April. She ended up buying clearance men's winter coats at Loehmann's and T.J. Maxx in Raleigh, and returning those that didn't fit to stores in Washington. She also shipped up a box of men's overcoats from PlayMakers.
Chapel Hill North
"Hamlet" has so many Carolina connections; the set practically became a satellite campus for UNC's drama department. Given the Red Clay Ramblers' success with shows such as "Lone Star Love," Haj easily convinced the Folger that Herrick could provide live music for "Hamlet." Francesca Talenti, a filmmaking professor, created an abstract animation of the play-within-the-play. Justin Townsend, a frequent designer at PlayMakers, took on the tricky task of lighting the all-white "Hamlet" set.
Three cast members have appeared in PlayMakers productions, including David Whalen (Claudius), who graduated with Haj from UNC's MFA program in 1988. And perhaps most familiar to Triangle audiences, Justin Adams, who took on the marathon title role in PlayMakers' "Nicholas Nickleby" last fall, came north to play Laertes in "Hamlet."
"We are really hoping that Obama comes to see us," Adams said, expressing a hope echoed by many actors in D.C. these days.
The Folger says tickets for the run - which is scheduled through June 6 - are selling well. But the reviews are all over the map. The website DC Theatre Scene called Haj's "Hamlet" the clearest in years, while The Washington Post panned the show.
What frustrated Post drama critic Peter Marks, and likely many other viewers with more than a 12th-grade English knowledge of "Hamlet," is that Haj has dodged the question that dramatists have debated for years: Is Hamlet mad or feigning madness? In this production, he's merely "mad" as in angry. Angry because his mother married his uncle, angry because his father was murdered, angry because his girlfriend dumped him.
The kids like it
From his vantage point at stage right, tucked into a box seat with a dozen instruments, Herrick has a great view of the audience. And he has a theory: Young people love this "Hamlet." It's not just that teenage girls like watching Graham Michael Hamilton, a charismatic young television actor, in the title role. (Though they do.)
"He's a punk," Herrick said. "He tells off all the grown-ups. Kids love that."
Bland Simpson, a UNC creative writing professor and pianist in the Red Clay Ramblers who took Amtrak to Washington to see the play, had another thought. "It's fierce," he said. "It's a fierce, fierce show."
Griffin has no complaints. "After opening night, we are all high on (Joe Haj) around here," she said. "He has pulled wonderful performances out of some very talented people."
