Rosencrantz and Guildenstern provide some comic relief
Here’s a project I never thought I would find myself doing. A production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet was looking for someone with physical comedy chops for a production taking place on Melrose.
Shakespeare? Seemed very literate and daunting for a guy who’s done exclusively improv for the last decade. ‘What the heck,’ I thought, ‘I’ll pick up some new language.’
Thus began the months of reading and preparation for Hamlet on Melrose, a 12 show run at the Zephyr Theater in the heart of the Melrose fashion district.
Having ingested everything from Sir Laurence Olivier to Mel Gibson, to Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlets, I can confidently say that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have more agency and a more chaotic energy than any Hamlet production I’ve seen before. It’s more fun to play them this way than what is typically a meekly scheming pair who exist mostly in the background.
Tickets are available for the last few weekends of performance, which occur on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 7. The play, slightly abridged from the original, runs just over 3 hours.
