Musings of Fellow Travellers

Last night, we saw Hamlet at the CTG/Mark Taper Forum. It was strange, and I haven’t yet decided if I fully like the approach it took to the piece. I do think that, instead of being a single two-hour no-intermission piece, it should have had an intermission between the distinctly different halves. We should have had an idea that something strange was going on: The pre-show setup had a large “Elsinore Pictures Corporation” display, and the show started with movie-like titles. Alas, I wasn’t familiar enough with Hamlet to realize that “Elsinore” was a reference to Kronborg Castle, located in Helsingør, Denmark, which serves as the setting for Shakespeare’s play.

I might not have been sufficiently versed in Hamlet to catch the Elsinore reference, but I am somewhat familiar with the piece. After all, I’ve seen The Lion King . More recently, we saw Fat Ham at the Geffen, which was a modern adaptation of the story. Most folks are familiar with the story (and there is a detailed synopsis on the Shakespeare.Org page). Hartford Stage also has a good short summary. The Google AI summarizes it as follows: “Hamlet, a tragedy by William Shakespeare, follows Prince Hamlet of Denmark as he grapples with the murder of his father, the King, by his uncle Claudius, who then married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude. The ghost of Hamlet’s father reveals Claudius’s treachery, prompting Hamlet to seek revenge. He feigns madness while investigating, leading to the accidental death of Polonius and Ophelia’s descent into madness and suicide. The play culminates in a duel where Hamlet, Claudius, Laertes, and Gertrude all die, leaving Horatio to tell the tale. “. Of course, this being an AI summary, it leaves out loads of plot points.

This play has, essentially, two parts. The first is a somewhat abridged, somewhat sexed-up retelling of the Shakespeare story in about an hour and twenty minutes. The show starts with Ophelia taking off her panties and Hamlet simulating going down on her, and there are numerous references to various characters paying homage to Hamlet’s rod or sword. Yes, the homo-erotic implications are there, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t in the original Shakespeare. As is common with Shakespeare, once you get used to the iambic pentameter and the oblique references, you follow the story pretty well.

The setting and staging of this first part is someone abstract: there are few parts, and the projections don’t really add a lot. We were warned by CTG numerous times that there would be blood, nudity, simulated sex, and violence, but they oversold it. The Lieutenant on Inishmore had so much blood, it had a splash zone. This had minimal blood, no nudity, and oblique references to sex. Still not for kids, but still not worthy of weekly email warnings.

But the first part was really just a slightly skewed retelling of Hamlet. It was in the second part that things got strange. It seemed to build upon the end of Hamlet, which Wikipedia summarized as “Horatio promises to recount the full story of what happened, and Fortinbras, seeing the entire Danish royal family dead, takes the crown for himself and orders a military funeral to honour Hamlet.”

In this version, Fortinbras becomes a Columbo-like detective, and starts interviewing the characters to find out what happened. It turns out that what we were seeing was a family drama of the Elsinore Picture Company, where someone killed the CEO, and the brother married the CEO’s wife, and Hamlet (a nepo-baby) started killing people, and everyone was doing cocaine and smoking pot. Rosencranz and Guildenstern are stupid college students; Hamlet is a 30-year old film student. The plot notes from the traditional Hamlet are transported to this film-noir approach. You get the idea.

However, the idea gets even more confused when they have projections that keep switching the time around: 30 years earlier, 200 years later. It makes it really hard to figure out the point they were trying to make.

The second part was fun, but was a jarring switch from the first part. Hamlet as a murder-mystery procedural is an interesting idea, and Shakespeare has shown that his stories are fluid and adaptable. If they wanted to do the procedural murder mystery approach, they needed to commit to it from the start. Don’t mislead people by presenting a traditional Hamlet; when we see such shows on TV, we know it is a flashback because we know the shows structure. There was no such structure here. For this conceit, it needed to be framed as murder mystery from the start. They didn’t need much, but as it is this play felt like two distinctly different shows. The two parts didn’t work together until you start thinking about them more about a half hour after the play. That’s not how a play should work.

Performances were strong, especially Patrick Ball as Hamlet, Coral Peña as Ophelia, and Jakeem Powell as Horatio.

Now for the key question: Should you see it? The answer is… well, you better work fast because it is closing today. I’m mixed on recommending this: It was interesting, but jarring. I think it needs more work to gel. So it is up to you. More information is available from the CTG Website; the show closes today, July 6, 2025.

Cast

Hamlet. Written by William Shakespeare. Adapted and directed by Robert O’Hara. This adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamledt was originally commissioned, developed, and produced by the Center Theatre Group at the Mark Taper Forum in 2025.

Cast: Patrick Ball Hamlet; Coral Peña Ophelia; James T. Alfred Head Attendant; Ariel Shafir Claudius; Gina Torres Gertrude; Ramiz Monsef Polonius; Ty Molbak Leartes / Rosencrantz; Jaime Lincoln Smith First Player / Attendant; Jakeem Powell Horatio; Joe Chrest Detective Fortinbras / Ghost; Danny Zuhike Guildenstern; Fidel Gomez Gravedigger. Understudies: Edward Hoke u/s Hamlet; Gabby Weitman u/s Ophelia; Inger Tudor u/s Head Attendant / Gertrude; Peter O’Connor u/s Claudius / Polonius; Miguel Angel Garcia u/s Horatio; Tim Frangos u/s Laertes / Rosencrantz; Tobin Mitnick u/s Guildenstern / First Player; Juan Francisco Villa u/s Gravedigger / Detective Fortinbras.

Production and Creative: Clint Ramos Scenic Design; Dede Ayite Costume Design; Lap Chi Chu Lighting Design; Lindsay Jones Original Music and Sound Design; Yee Eun Nam Projection Design; J. Jared Janas Wig, Hair, and Make-up Design; Teniece Divya Johnson Fight Direction; Nicholas Polonio Dramaturg and Assoc. Director; Henry Russell Bergstein CSA Casting Director; David S. Franklin Production Stage Manager; Camella Coopilton Stage Manager.

Thoughts on One CTG

The Center Theatre Groups likes to promote their subscription as “One CTG”, but that’s not how the treat it internally, and that creates problems. Internally, they treat the single subscription as an Ahmanson Subscription and a Taper Subscription.

This is significant because they don’t coordinate the two, and because of the size difference between the venues, the subscriptions have different weeks. In our case, we seem to have the first Saturday of Ahmanson shows, and the last Saturday of Taper shows. This isn’t a problem if they stagger the shows right, but in the upcoming 2025-2026 season, there are two conflicts. For two of the dates, our Taper shows and our Ahmanson shows are at the same time.

If this were truly One CTG, then CTG would resolve the differences. But this being really Two CTGs, we’re on our own. The first day you can exchange tickets, its up to you to resolve things with whatever seats are available to exchange.

CTG, this is poor form. If you want to want to be the best in customer service, you will work to resolve this. Broadway in Hollywood did, ensuring that Dolby Shows and Pantages Shows didn’t leave subscribers with conflicts. You can do better.

Administrivia

I am not a professional critic. I’m a cybersecurity professional, a roadgeek who does a highway site and a podcast about California Highways, and someone who loves live performance. I buy all my own tickets, unless explicitly noted otherwise. I do these writeups to share my thoughts on shows with my friends and the community. I encourage you to go to your local theatres and support them (ideally, by purchasing full price tickets, if you can afford to do so). We currently subscribe or have memberships at: Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre; Broadway in Hollywood/Pantages Theatre; Pasadena Playhouse; The Soraya, and 5-Star Theatricals. We’re looking for the right intimate theatre to subscribe at — it hasn’t been the same since Rep East died (it’s now The Main, and although it does a lot of theatre, it doesn’t have seasons or a resident company), and post-COVID, most 99-seaters aren’t back to doing seasons (or seasons we like). I used to do more detailed writeups; here’s my current approach.

Upcoming ♦ Theatre / ♣ Music / ◊ Other Live Performance – Next 90ish Days (⊕ indicates ticketing is pending).

• July: ♦ A Beautiful Noise at BIH/Pantages; ♦ Puppet Up at CTG/Kirk Douglas; ♦ Frozen at 5-Star Theatricals
• August: ♦ Some Like It Hot at BIH/Pantages; ♦ & Juliet at CTG/Ahmanson
• September: ♦ Shucked at BIH/Pantages; ♣ ⊕The Limeliters at McCabes; ♦ Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish at The Soraya
• October: ♣ Fly Me to the Moon at The Soraya; ♦ Hairspray at 5-Star Theatricals

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as Doublemint Prince of Denmark | "Hamlet" @ CTG/Taper by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.