Hamlet

In the progression from workshop performance to official opening, the look and feel of the production-with its clever visual references to contemporary pop culture, punk rock, decadence, and cold war authoritarianism-remained much the same. The usurper's regime had the look of a mid-century military dictatorship in this production (almost everyone at court was in uniform-with the notable exception of Horatio, who was dressed like a priest, and Hamlet-and when Guildencrantz first appeared, he was being fitted with a wire by Polonius), but it wasn't clear that there was any real threat from without; instead, with all the action unfolding in the same trash-strewn room, the play's focus was tightly fixed on the small, decaying, incestuous world of the Danish court. [...]in her comments on the play, Tina Rasmussen, the Artistic Director of the World Stage series, reminded audiences of this textual instability, suggesting to us that "by listening to the words rather than reading them, we might hear all three and discover something new in what we consider familiar." Moments later, he tossed the items cavalierly across the table to her, asking "Are you honest?" (The tape was probably a recording of "Ghost Rider" by the punk band Suicide; later in the play, overcome by grief, Ophelia dances to this music.) In the next performance I watched, Hamlet passed the cassette to Ophelia in an earlier scene, and folded his scribblings into a paper airplane.