STAGE REVIEW : HE DEIGNS TO SHAKE UP SHAKESPEARE’S DANE

The Los Angeles Actors’ Theatre is billing its new show as “William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet,’ directed and freely adapted by Charles Marowitz.” It would be more accurate to call it “Charles Marowitz’s ‘Hamlet,’ based on materials supplied by William Shakespeare.”

Marowitz started doing his Shakespearean collages more than 20 years ago. The idea is to shake up the original text, as you might a box of Scrabble letters, and see what new combinations are called forth. The effect is meant to be liberating, both for Shakespeare’s lines and for the one who has dared to make free with them. The awe that surrounds a sacred text rolls away, and it is revealed as being just words, after all--if potent words.

The impulse isn’t so much to trash a classic as to get out from under the weight of it. But there might indeed be a grudge against the play, or against the results of the play. In this case Marowitz suggests in his program notes that Hamlet really is a wimp, always standing around soliloquizing, whereas Fortinbras gets down to action.

God save us from these wishy-washy, let’s-consider-all-sides-of-the-question people! So Marowitz’s dislocation of the play, which is by no means as random as it seems, will emphasize Hamlet’s comic futility.

A great text under assault: sounds like good conflict. We think of Steven Berkoff’s gutter fight with the Oedipus myth in “Greek” and Marowitz’s subversive refutation of Ibsen in “Enemy of the People.” But this 90-minute vaudeville-style “Hamlet” is a cheap shot. Rather than convicting Hamlet (Franklyn Seales) of being an oversensitive ass, it assumes from the beginning that he is one, and simply piles on the derision.

That extends to the whole play. Marowitz (who also directed) doesn’t make his production an out-and-out spoof, which would have carried the responsibility of being regularly funny, rather than sporadically amusing. For instance, he doesn’t guy Shakespeare’s language. Though fractured, it’s well spoken. When Seales gabbles a soliloquy it’s purposeful.

Yet it doesn’t feel as if we’re wrestling a classic to the mat here. It feels as if we are putting it on. Like Joseph Papp’s “Naked Hamlet” of 1968, the evening isn’t really about Shakespeare. It’s about defying Shakespeare--proving that we’re not scared of him.

It’s the “Hamlet Follies,” with wooden swords and sight gags. It’s also something of a costume party. Laertes (Chris McDonald) has come as Frederick from “Pirates of Penzance.” Ophelia (Jane Windsor) is Lolita. Hamlet Senior (Ford Rainey) is either Dr. Caligari or the Joker from “Batman.”

Claudius (Charles Lanyer) is a Latin American dictator, Fortinbras (Robert O’Reilly) a Viking superhero in gold boots and Gertrude (Kate Geer) a fancy lady from the Old West. As for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Len Whitaker and Niche Saboda), they are, not very originally, a vaudeville team. When they finish an out-of-sync routine to a player piano, guess what Polonius comes up with as a capper? “The time is out of joint!”

It should be noted that Polonius (Armin Shimerman) doubles as the gravedigger, which gives him many chances to stick his head out of a trapdoor in the stage like a jack-in-the-box. If any of this strikes the reader as new and delightfully outrageous, he will enjoy this production.

Seales’ job--he wears graduate-school corduroys and a sweater, plus a little toy sword--is to convey Hamlet’s high opinion of his own sensitivity, while sending him up as a fatuous twit. It speaks well of this actor that he has problems sending him up. Each aborted speech shows evidence of what a superb Hamlet Seales could be in a non-facetious production, and that should be one of LAAT’s first orders of business once it moves downtown.

The most expressive aspect of the production is Timian Alsaker’s set, a tipped gray circle where Hamlet keeps finding himself centered, surrounded by a jeering circle from the costume party. This also would be an effective image in a serious production of the play. Perhaps it’s time for Marowitz to stop cutting up Shakespeare and start doing him. There isn’t that much good classical theater in this town.

Anne Archer is now playing the second white chick in “A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking” at the new, agreeable Hollywood Playhouse and Cafe. Not having seen Susan Anspach in the role, I can’t compare Archer’s performance, but she made me believe her Westchester housewife--which, given the behavior assigned her by playwright John Ford Noonan, is some trick. Elizabeth Ashley continues as the chick from Texas, and she is a hoot.

‘HAMLET’

Charles Marowitz’s dislocation of Shakespeare’s play, at the Los Angeles Actors’ Theatre. Director Marowitz. Producer Diane White. Production design Timian Alsaker. Co-costume design Armand Coutu. Co-lighting design Todd A. Jared. Piano-roll music by Marowitz, arranged by Rick Krisman. With Franklyn Seales, Robert O’Reilly, Ford Rainey, Kate Geer, Charles Lanyer, Armin Shimerman, Jane Windsor, Chris McDonald, Len Whitaker, Niche Saboda, Roderick Spencer, Kristina David. Plays Mon.-Sat. at 8 p.m., with matinees Thurs. and Sat. at 2. Closes May 18. Tickets $10-$20. 1089 N. Oxford Ave. 464-5500.