"Hamlet" and "St. Joan" in rotating repertory at McCarter

 “You get a medal for bravery,” the usher said to me as I separated my two pair of tickets to a double header of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” on the same day with George Bernard Shaw’s “St. Joan.” Admittedly, it was as daunting an immersion into heavy-duty theater as I would ever normally undertake. But I did it and I’m glad. I am also going to presume that it is as formidable and fun for the cast of four that played all the characters in both plays in the course of one day. Most days it’s one or the other (check schedule.)

That’s right only four actors are performing (almost want to call them performance artists) these two iconic dramas. It is a rematch of an acclaimed Off Broadway engagement in 2013. Bedlam is the name of the company responsible for these adventurous productions and they command our respect and admiration for the laudably un-heavy-handed and generally respectful way each play is being done here in rotating repertory at the McCarter Theater Center.

Last Saturday for me began at 3 pm with “Hamlet” that lasted exactly three hours. It featured Edmund Lewis, Andrus Nichols, Tom O’Keefe and company director Eric Tucker undertaking the various roles with, as expected, varying degrees of esprit de corps. The Bedlam approach to “Hamlet” may not be a purists’ delight, but considering the familiarity many of us have with the basic story, their vision of the play and their interpretations of the prominent characters are at the very least refreshing without running the risk of parody.

Except for some unsteadying moments when it appears that Tucker’s Hamlet appears to swing involuntarily from insanity to inanity, (bi-polar?) the complicated and bearded Dane in casual contemporary attire (when not in T-shirt and barefooted) deports himself nobly and rendered his famous soliloquies with exceptional clarity and carefully invested unconformity. Ms. Nichols handles the switcheroo from the duplicitous Queen Gertrude into the unwittingly duped Ophelia by freeing up her pony tail but more importantly making us believe in the transformation.

There’s a decided chill in the air as O’Keefe’s unremorsefully wicked King Claudius stalks tenuously around his newly acquired domain after his heinous murder of Hamlet’s father. He also makes a fairly good case for a bespectacled Polonius, who is even more profoundly foolish than we are use to, but also surprisingly doesn’t play upon the humor inherent in his advice to Laertes. Best moments include Polonius’s tendency to go blank mid speech and also O’Keefe and Lewis as the chatty grave-diggers who mimic the speech of Brooklyn cabbies of yore. This may also be the only time you will get to see a Hamlet do the Charleston...don’t ask.

The playing area is rearranged for each act with floor seating and the bleacher seating shifted to accommodate the action. Those members of the audience not seated in the auditorium are asked to go into the lobby for this activity. Upon returning, some are assigned not only lines but small duties. I accepted the invitation and took a seat on the stage for the final act. A gentleman directly in front of me was given the goblet laced with the poison to hold...and performed his task commendably.

The asides in Hamlet are given additional heft as the actors intentionally interact with the audience. It’s great fun to participate and it doesn’t detract from the intensity of the drama being performed. The actors also use the steep aisles of the Berlind effectively throughout the play. The modernist affectations, including the use of flash-lights on the battlement and the ghostly projections are part of a splendidly unpretentious artistic design that include John McDermott’s settings enhanced by Les Dickert’s eerie lighting.

The seating is again reconfigured for “St. Joan.” As with “Hamlet,” the staging brings Shaw’s harrowing 1923 drama with twenty-two characters up close and personal. Tucker’s direction of the play defines itself without the pretensions often ascribed to period dramas. There is, however, a conscientious alignment with contemporary styles in the costuming that works well enough. Seeing a Princeton baseball cap and a motorcycle helmet here there on a soldier added a bit of humor in an otherwise grim drama. To be honest, “St. Joan” is much more ponderous and a lot less fun than “Hamlet” but not without its worthiness.

While the six scenes in the play, including that brilliantly out of time and space epilogue, resonate with that which is Shaw, there is not a moment in which the actors appear even slightly daunted by his talky salvos. Shaw’s audiences had more patience for speechifying and mostly displayed an  admiration for his incomparable if also insufferable wit. 

As portrayed heroically and with little pretense of being a girl of sixteen, Ms Nichols’s Joan is understandably characterized as more warrior-woman than saint (a stance that has also inspired some of the greatest actors of the twentieth century including Katherine Cornell, Uta Hagen and Lynn Redgrave) the result is a unique performance that, nevertheless, also radiates with the devotion to her faith and dedication to her cause. Besides Tucker’s Joan, a dozen roles are shared by the other three actors, each of whom contribute to making the heartbreaking core of the play also theatrically palatable. To be sure, we are asked to make allowances for the Bedlam point-of-view.

Neither is Shaw’s point-of-view distorted in any meaningful way as we watch and listen to the purpose and the plight of a young 15th century French woman who responds as an undaunted activist to the instructive voices/messengers of God Saints Catherine and Margaret. This, as she is prompted to lead French troops against the English directly in the face of a male-entrenched hierarchy.

It’s always a treat to watch talented performers take on multiple roles to show their versatility.

O’Keefe make an impressive leap from a teasing Bluebeard to a testy Catholic Bishop. But it is no less an awesome transformation than that of Lewis as the infantile Dauphin who is destined to become the King but reluctant to assume any authority over the army, and who then becomes the soulless Chaplain who campaigns for Joan’s death at the stake. You won’t see much if anything that subscribes to the 15th century in the trappings. Again the audience becomes the on- lookers and participants in the infamous trial scene and its aftermath.

While I would like to suggest that seeing both plays, as performed by this excellent young company, makes for an exciting theatrical experience, “St Joan” is less likely come around again as soon as “Hamlet.” So perhaps, for these times, “St. Joan” may offer that glimmer of hope and faith to those ready and willing to stand up against the ignorance and petulance of the powerful.

At Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center
Performances: Tues. Wed. Thurs. at 7:30 pm; Fri. & Sat. at 8 pm; Sat. at 3 pm; Sun. at 2 and 7:30 pm.
From 01/13/17 Ends 02/12/17