Wooster Group’s Hamlet

Adam Marple

When you hear the concept behind The Wooster Group’s Hamlet, currently running at the public until December 2nd, you ask your self, “Why?” To do the bard’s greatest work isn’t in question. To do the bard’s greatest work in front of and in conjunction with Sir John Gielgud and Richard Burton’s filmed stage version from the ‘60’s is. In 1964 Sir John Gielgud decided to direct a modern dress Hamlet starring Sir Richard Burton. It was going to be shown in over 800 movie theaters across the country and was a major event of its time that has yet to be rivaled (though the Metropolitan Opera is coming close). Filmed with 17 different cameras from varying angles, it was miles away from the electronovision version of the “shot directly on” filmed versions of stage performances. But with the Wooster Group’s Hamlet you never truly know why they have decided to mix live performance with the filmed version of the story they are representing.

However it is endlessly fascinating. The company recreates the blocking, intonations, and jump cuts of the film. The film, shown on a 40-foot screen behind the live actors, plays the 1960’s film version, while in front of the screen The Wooster Group imitates what is going on behind them. It is a directing and design tour de force where the actor gets lost in the process. How can anyone act in this show? Isn’t it all just imitation? Amongst other questions you ask yourself if you are paying attention to the story or the staging? Could they both be the same? At one point in the show I said that nothing was being illuminated from this process. By the end I realized everything was being illuminated whether they intended it or not. When the camera shifts to a close-up the actors literally move their universe downstage. When the camera takes another angle, so does the stage. Space is manipulated in a way that I have never seen before and may not have understood without the film going on behind it. The Wooster group uses technology to actually “ghost” away characters from the film so that all that is left is the empty film stage, or an arm, or head, or simply voice. It makes you focus on the live actors on stage that you sometimes forget about. As always The Wooster Group is fucking with theatre, but to what end? What are they asking? You don’t listen to the story so much as feel the tone and understand the psychology of the piece. They are also assuming you already know Hamlet well enough to understand what is going on. Does everyone know Hamlet well enough though? Everyone thinks they do, but do they? What about Romeo and Juliet?

This is pure imitation. But, imitation is the highest form of flattery. You realize what they are attempting is damned hard, but they fall a little short. You actually wish they had more precision behind it. Contrary to one critic’s comment of being “Shakespeare Karaoke,” this piece has something behind it. However, it could not support itself until the end. I would have loved for the technology to be stripped away and be left with an actor on an empty stage speaking the greatest poetry the English-speaking world has ever known. Shakespeare’s language was too powerful for any technology that The Wooster Group threw at it. And maybe that is the point they wanted to make. But I doubt it. They are known for their bravado and technological extravaganzas. At the rate that this show is selling out and extending I doubt they will hesitate to look at theatre any differently or any clearer than they have been for the last 30 years. As you leave the theatre with far too many questions bouncing through your mind, two things will stand out: endlessly fascinating, but why?