Unsex Me "Hamlet" (review)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

Kinda/sorta.  I mean, odds are already know the plot, amiright?  

Now, I rarely review readings, in part because it hardly seems fair when the effort in ongoing to create a final draft of the play being read.  Usually.  

But not this time.  Unsex Me Here Theatre is a new troupe, centered in and around folks all too often ignored/under-used in live theatre.  Namely--women, trans, and nonbinary individuals.  This reading of Hamlet went all in, casting exclusively from exactly those individuals.

First, let me say this was a good Hamlet, far better than many professional productions I've seen.  The cast is fairly gi-normous, due to the fun little bit of casting multiple women in the role of the melancholy Dane (fun fact--the 1920 silent film of this play was Danish, and starred a woman in the title role).  Shakespeare's original is also a very long work, often reaching three and a half hours, whereas this cut quite nicely ended up being almost exactly two hours.  

What it particularly--and given the avowed mission of UMH in no way startling--wanted to convey was how much of the story focuses on how masculinity is defined, or more accurately how its definition is evolving.  Hamlet's initial impulse upon learning of his father's murder is to seek revenge/justice.  But he is more cunning than to simply go and commit regicide.  He decides to pretend to be mad--not difficult considering just how many issues with which he's dealing--and in the process increasingly is declared "woman-ish" i.e. weak, unstable, unreliable, incoherent, to be pitied.  Yet here also in this play we have two fascinating characters written as female, each pushed to the sidelines and ultimately slain (along, recall, with most of the rest of the cast).  

Gotta say methinks director Emily Asher Kellis is on to something here.  Enough to make me long to see her given the resources for a full production.  Here is the cast in total, with a few notes:

Hamlet #1- Krisha Deaver
Hamlet #2- Taylor Jackson Ross
Hamlet #3- Shannon Lee Clair
Hamlet #4- Alexandra Helquist
Hamlet #5- Victoria Hoffman
Hamlet #6- Peggy Flood
Hamlet #7- Bridget Garwood
Hamlet #8- Libby Letlow
Hamlet #9- Kat Johnston
Hamlet #10- Amanda Noriko Newman (For the record I refuse to even try to declare which of these is my "favorite" Hamlet, because all were uniquely themselves)
King- Debba Rofheart (Have seen her play Kings in Shakespeare before, and adore how each has been so individual, so complex, but never pretending).
Queen- Elizabeth Dennehy (Kudos for doing so well with what is often an almost invisible role, at least in many productions--yet I saw her putting the pieces together of events around her, and it broke her heart)
Polonius- Michelle Grey
Horatio- Juls Hoover (Gorgeous how this, often little more than a spear carrier, became a vivid and very specific human being with a strong connection to all her Hamlets).
Ophelia- Kaite Brandt (One of my favorite Ophelias ever--I mean it.  Were she given full rehearsal time I would expect to be awestruck.)
Laertes- Lindsay Zana (Actually my favorite Laertes of all time, one of the two most difficult roles in the play, yet done with such nuance and commitment I believed in this version more than any other I've ever seen).
Ghost/Player1/Captain- Xiomara Bernard
Rosencrantz/Messenger/Osric- Jen Rowe
Guildenstern/Doctor/Sailor- Zoo Holstrom
Stage Directions- Veronica Carey Matthews

Forgive me for not giving a breakdown of everyone, not even the actors I know and have praised in the past.  What I want to do most of all is to praise the whole idea of this new theatre company, especially given current events.  I also understand their mission down to my bones.  Every audition I've ever attended, women outnumbered men, yet the vast majority of plays it is the exact opposite--often with few if any women at all.  When I decided a certain character in a play which I myself wrote should be either transgender or non-binary, I got a startling amount of pushback.  In a time when powers seek to de-humanize women, trans, and nonbinary human beings, lifting them up and highlighting their talents, choices, and skills seems profoundly useful, wise, and kind. 

'Tis a consummation devotely to be wished.

Join me in wishing for more!  I understand they have plans for Othello...another deeply topical play under the circumstances.