Jeff Church was born to play Hamlet.
As lead in a retelling of the Shakesperean tragedy at Gamm Theatre, Church is physically and emotionally nimble, leaping and swashbuckling about the three-tiered stage to deliver iconic lines – “To be or not to be,” “To thine own self be true,” “To die, to sleep, perchance to dream…” – with such ferocity the walls tremble with a seductive blend of excitement and trepidation.
Just shy of three hours, this is not a show for the feint of heart but provides a timely and moving glimpse into power’s grip on man and the death and destruction it can leave in its path. For Hamlet, it also showcases the lengths a son will go to expose the treachery causing his father’s death.
Opening with a visit from his father’s ghost, Hamlet pretends to go mad as he plots revenge on the murderer – his father’s brother, Claudius, who since married his mother, Gertrude, and taken over the throne of Denmark. At the height of his “madness,” Hamlet stages a play fingering his uncle in the murder.
These are moments when Church’s animation shines as he erupts with inane exclamations and bounds about taunting and terrifying others. At one point, he hangs upside down by his ankles, reading a book. He then leaps onto a long wooden table, sliding gracefully from one end to another while speaking.
“My, what’s diseased,” he says at a third point, furiously shaking his head with cartoonish sound effects.
Hamlet proves multi-layered in its deception – childhood friends of the prince double as spies for the king, while Ophelia is torn between her love for Hamlet and her father’s directives to stop seeing him. Her betrayal of Hamlet ultimately leaves her suicidal.
Directed by Gamm Artistic Director Tony Estrella, Hamlet is heavy theatre to be sure, with plenty of onstage carnage. Enhancing Shakespeare’s age-old messages, however, is Estrella’s keen insight into the minds of the playwright and his modern audience, with the breath-taking skill of actors living the lines.
The company taps creative lighting and voice distortion technology for eerie ghost and cemetery scenes, while two massive drums beside the stage punctuate action and monologues with thunderous booms for an effect that is ethereal.
In addition to Church, the production features outstanding performances from Nora Eschenheimer, whose angst-riddled Ophelia is pitiable and tragic; Marc Pierre as Laertes, who duels with Hamlet and is powered by such intensity the character is indelibly marked in the audience’s collective brain; and Jeanine Kane, as a desperate and manipulative Queen Gertrude.
Shakespeare is putty in the hands of the Gamm team and this production of Hamlet is uniquely decadent and wickedly memorable. Think you’ve seen it before? Not like this you haven’t. The show runs through April 27. For more information, go to www.gammtheatre.org.
