Five extraordinary actors of assorted ethnicity, gender, race, accent, and age make theatrical history by divvying up The Prince Of Denmark in The 6th Act’s brilliantly conceived, superbly performed Hamlet.

While it’s true that women and actors of color (and perhaps an occasional female actor of color) have played him before, director-adapter Matthew Leavitt’s stroke of genius is to have each of the Shakespeare chef-d’oeuvre’s five acts feature a different Hamlet.

And wonder of wonders, it works, not only allowing each remarkable performer to bring his or her stage persona to The Greatest Part Ever Written but also to put personal stamps on those conspiring (deliberately or not) to make the mournful Dane’s life a living hell.

English character actress Janet Greaves is Act One’s sulky, resentful, introspective prince, distraught by his mother Queen Gertrude’s (a ferocious June Carryl) remarriage to her late husband King Hamlet’s brother Claudius (Jonathan Medina, likable and loathsome) a mere two months after his murder … by said brother no less.

Latino leading man Medina takes over in Act Two as a more energized Hamlet feigns madness to the adoring Ophelia (Desirée Mee Jung, delicate and demure), her mother Polonius (Greaves, giving the role a wise-and-witty gender swap), and college chums Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Jung and Carryl providing refreshing comic relief), while instructing Luke McClure’s self-absorbed matinee idol of a Player to “speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.”

Next up is “traditional Hamlet” McClure, who gives us the Prince Of Denmark at his most agonized, whether pondering whether “To be or not to be,” or exhorting Ophelia to “Get thee to a nunnery,” or doing a little murdering of his own.

Act Four sees African-American L.A. stage royal Carryl alternating between a Hamlet whose desire for revenge burns hotter than ever and a Gertrude with the saddest of news to impart.

Korean-American Jung gets to take over Hamlet precisely when our hero has reached the end of his rope, sharing the stage with Medina’s stalwart Horatio and Greaves’ kooky Cockney gravedigger, then reappearing in duel-to-the-death mode against McClure’s justifiably vexed Laertes. (Kudos to fight director Jesse James Thomas.)

If all this sounds like it might be more than a bit confusing, it’s not, thanks not just to costume designer Ashphord Jacoway’s character-defining accessories atop Hamlet’s signature black but to performances that make it clear who’s who every step of the way.

Credit adapter Leavitt for puzzling out which cast member is available to play Hamlet in each act and making necessary adjustments along the way (e.g., ensuring that Greaves’ Hamlet has already exited when her Polonius comes on stage, moving McClure’s Player to Act Two so he won’t have to play opposite himself, having Jung recite Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s lines when Carryl’s Gertrude is only inches away).

Carryl, Greaves (also Osric in Maggie Smith mode), Jung (also Francisco), McClure (also Captain), Medina (also Ghost) are not only extraordinary, they make Elizabethan iambic pentameter sound fresh and new and as comprehensible as Shakespeare gets.

Costumes and props suggest a stylish mid-20th-century setting, among them a vintage radio, a couple of Life magazines, and most significantly an 8mm movie camera and projector that allow an inspired Leavitt to stage Hamlet’s play-within-a-play as recorded voice-over as assembled viewers look on aghast.

Scenic designer Gary Lee Reed’s multi-locale set is as classy as it is ingenious, Josephine Wang ups the drama with her striking lighting design, and sound designer Nick Neidorf underscores with marvelously moody jazz instrumentals.

Hamlet is produced by Liza Seneca and Leavitt. Cam Deaver is assistant director and dramaturg. Josie Austin is stage manager and Megan Donahue is assistant stage manager. Cindy Nguyen steps in for Jung the weekend of March 15

Don’t let the thought of “yet another Hamlet” deter you from catching The 6th Act’s latest. Simply put, if you see any Shakespeare in 2019 (and even professed Bardphobes like this reviewer owe it to themselves to see Shakespeare at least once a year), let it be this one, a Hamlet like no other before.

The New American Theatre, 1312 N. Wilton Place, Hollywood.
www.the6thact.com

–Steven Stanley
March 8, 2019
Photos: Karianne Flaathen

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, The 6th Act, William Shakespeare