For Future Reference, Hamlet Takes Action

Directorial concepts pasted on Shakespearean plays very rarely work without a direct and insightful bearing on the illumination of the text.

Director Kreg Donahoe’s concept for his staging of “Hamlet,” at Stages, works well in several different areas. It’s set in 2050 after a collision between Earth and a meteor the size of Texas, which plunges the planet into a second Ice Age.

With this group’s small performance space, the castle at Elsinore--and its towers and walkways and halls--would have been impossible to reproduce. But the stage lends itself to the cellular confinement of living in a world structured on survival, especially in the design by the director and Gavin Carlton, who also plays Hamlet. Large corrugated triangles in massive wooden frames swing out from the walls, and their opening-and-closing handily sets the scenes in various parts of the dwelling.

As for the text, Donahoe’s staging also suggests the insularity of Denmark in its original time, duplicated in a future as tribalized as the past. The claustrophobic atmosphere is right, and effective.

Some very good performances add to the mix. Gavin Carlton’s Hamlet is a child of the modern world, not afraid to show his emotions, nor leery of sobbing his frustrations or giggling his slyness. This isn’t a pensive Hamlet, but a Hamlet of action, direct and forceful.

Brian Kojac’s Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle and new stepfather, is a corporate type, plotting his nephew’s destruction as he might a hostile takeover. As Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother and Claudius’ bride, Kara Knappe is a first lady without guile, destroyed by the realization that a situation that seemed so right is so wrong.

Frank Tryon’s fairly standard Laertes looks very much like today’s young man on the climb, and Tracy Perdue’s Ophelia, though overdone (too crazy), makes an interesting comment by looking at first like a babbling punker, then seeming to age in her madness as though the youthful mask had fallen off.

Michael Miller’s very academic but boyishly convivial Polonius fits very nicely into Donahoe’s pattern, as does the sort of Dagwood Bumstead of a Horatio played by Robert Dean Nunez.

The supporting cast plays Donahoe’s game effectively, with the possible exception of Ken Jaedicke’s and Martin Williams’ Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are not allowed by the brevity of their material or their intuition to be much more than galumphing oafs tearing about.

The sword duels at the end? Donahoe solves this with his tongue in his cheek. Of course, martial arts would be the contest of choice in 2050 A.D.

BE THERE

“Hamlet,” Stages, 1188 N. Fountain Way, Suite E, Anaheim. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 6 p.m. Ends Nov. 9. $10. (714) 630-3059. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.