Bob Brown

ANY director who takes on Hamlet stands at the foot of a mountain: centuries of performances, myriad interpretational contexts and approaches, political axes ground in its name, and the near-ossification of the most familiar soliloquies in the English language. And at any one time there are bound to be simultaneous productions that beg comparison, if not legendary past ones that have stuck in the mind.

   Such was the dilemma facing director Bonnie J. Monte, so it was understandable when she confessed to the opening night audience at the F. M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre that she was somewhat nervous. There are always expectations, as she knew, when one sees a familiar work in a new guise.

   But of all Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet may be at once the most malleable and thus perhaps the most forgiving in this respect. Its chief characteristic, which draws audiences to it again and again, is its inscrutability — not that it is willfully obscure; rather, that no matter how hard we try, we cannot quite pin down what motivates the Prince of Denmark. It’s a tantalizing puzzle that has spawned as many interpretations as there are eras.

   It should be noted that, as in all productions by the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, we are in very capable hands with a fine cast (many Broadway veterans) and an imaginative set design, the latter also by Monte. The soundscape, an integral part of that design, features brief musical interludes by the Harmonium Choral Society, which effectively set the mood and bridge the transitions from scene to scene.

   The play looms large in the imagination as a powerful tragedy — which it certainly is — but one that is mixed with comedy and clever bits of verbal jousting. It is a virtual cornucopia of rhetorical devices[agr: Delete “virtual”? , a delight to the ear. It struck me that this production highlights that fun of language and humor while putting the action on a human scale.

   We all know the core plot: The ghost of Hamlet Sr. presses his son, Hamlet (Gareth Saxe), to exact revenge for his murder by Claudius (Robert Cuccioli), who has taken his brother’s place as the husband of Hamlet’s apparently clueless mother, Gertrude (Jacqueline Antaramian). While Claudius is in a buoyant mood (Cuccioli’s performance elicited laughs on opening night), Hamlet is a party-pooper, who has been brooding about his father’s death, even before he suspected the reasons. The play centers on his vacillation. He constructs stratagems and rationalizations that seem designed to thwart his own intentions. This ambivalence in light of his deep distress and anger is at the heart of the mystery.

   One counterbalance to this sourness is Claudius’ adviser, Polonius (John Hickok), a windbag busybody who, ironically, can’t stand verbosity in others. His long list of “Do’s” and “Don’ts” to his son, Laertes (Daniel Stewart), is one of the comic staples of the stage. Likewise, his instructions to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Gene Gillette and Michael Stewart Allen, respectively) on how to spy on Laertes’ behavior abroad is a humorous gem. In a bit of creative stage business that also brings a chuckle, Claudius addresses Rosencrantz as Guildenstern and vice versa — a mistake Gertrude exposes by addressing each correctly.

   Another scene that would have been especially amusing to Shakespeare’s contemporaries involves the play within a play, where Hamlet intends to “catch the conscience of a king.” His instructions to the players are in effect a tongue-in-cheek peek behind the curtain at the supposed contempt for which a playwright holds the “groundlings,” the audience in the cheap seats, as it were.

   Hamlet is a play with so many familiar quotes, we hardly think of their origin: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be...”; “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so...”; and of course the famous soliloquies, which are so ingrained that they almost verge on self-parody. How does one approach “To be or not to be...” freshly? One thinks of an actor taking a deep breath, girding his actorly loins, perhaps assuming a declamatory pose and furrowing the brow. Not so in this case. Saxe’s Hamlet says it almost offhandedly, as a contemplative moment that interrupts his thought while he pores over notes. The very intimacy of the utterance lifts the words beyond cliché and gives them an urgency and meaning we might have missed.

   Likewise, the famous churchyard scene, where a gravedigger (Jason Edward Bobb) has pulled up two skulls, one being the former court jester Yorick. Hamlet’s “Alas, poor Yorick...” soliloquy, often a melancholy and foreshadowing memento mori, is here rather a tender reflection in a private conversation between Hamlet and his most trusted friend, Horatio (Greg Jackson). No portentous speechifying; it seems natural, working organically with the flow of events.

   And one could go on: as with Ophelia (played beautifully by Lauren English) in her mad scene, where Hamlet’s spurned lover is reduced to the mentality of a little girl, incongruously reciting bawdy lyrics and strewing herbs and flowers. Of course all ends in a blood bath, and we are no nearer to figuring out the whys. But getting to the bottom of it is secondary.

   After all these years, is it possible to see new things in Hamlet? Certainly, but what stands out here, at least to my mind, is an intimacy and mood that is a refreshing way to approach it anew.

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  Hamlet continues F. M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre on the Drew University campus, 36 Madison Avenue at Lancaster Road, Madison, through Oct. 11. Performances: Sun. 2, 7:30 p.m., Tues.-Wed. 7:30 p.m., Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $30-$54. 973-408-5600; www.shakespearenj.org