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Nothing’s darker or more brooding than the heavy metal of the Danes, who give their bands names like Panzerchrist and Slow Death Factory. Yet while Polarity’s take on Hamlet as disturbed rock aficionado is appropriate, and the show is chockablock with capable singers and musicians, it lacks rock’s energy and attack.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, has lost his beloved father; his mother Gertrude (the original MILF) quickly marries his uncle. His father’s ghost appears and details his murder, Hamlet swears vengeance, and the rest, friends, is tears.
Keen’s direction hits and misses: The gender-blind casting of the competent Summer Widhalm as Horatio was a puzzling miss; Ophelia’s mental chaos accompanied by a sinister hooded musician, a satisfying hit. Jason Epperson’s set is a basic black-box rock club, Smart Bar circa 1986; Kendell Johnstone’s costumes are appropriately heavy on the leather and denim.
But Hill’s Hamlet needs more layers; the character’s torment-fueled progression is notably absent. We miss the “is he or isn’t he bat-shit crazy” sense of threat. Jordan fails to capture Polonius’s blowhard humor, while Engling’s Claudius is far too amiable and pale to serve as a proper villain. The show has its bright spots: Darrel Hager stands out as the Gravedigger. (Singing Guns N’ Roses’ lyric “I used to love her but I had to kill her” while digging Ophelia’s grave? Priceless.) Lukasiewicz’s Laertes has solid poetic fluency and an urgency the show desperately needs. His final duel with Hamlet rocked; would that the rest of the show packed that much intensity.
